Landlord High Standing Charge for Solar

jb201

Hi

This is for a commercial property. 

I left the property last July into a new office we have purchased. Just before we left my now ex landlord had solar panels installed. Our lease ran until December, and all rent was paid up until that date.

While we were there before solar was installed we of course paid for our electric which was metered. However of course with solar there is a lot less usage, but, we had moved out, so we didn't use any. My ex landlord however has decided to charge for use of the solar under an increased standing charge of £4.20 a day. This means we are paying this amount a day and we weren't even using the office. 

When we were there, this would have probably been cheaper. But as we are not there, this has heavily worked against us. We are paying £4.20 a day for something we don't even use. 

I questioned him and he got rather annoyed and said a lot of effort had gone into it to work it in a way that is fair for everybody. Well, I'm not sure how he worked out it's better for me.

Question is, is he allowed to do this? I appreciate he's allowed to charge me for solar as its his investment, but I was under the impression he needs to charge me per unit used which the inverter should be able tell him.

Thanks in advance. 

user1977

What does your lease say about it?

jb201

user1977 said:

What does your lease say about it?

It's not in the lease as he didn't have solar panels at the start of the lease. He's made it up after they have been installed. 

eddddy

jb201 said:

user1977 said:

What does your lease say about it?

It's not in the lease as he didn't have solar panels at the start of the lease. He's made it up after they have been installed. 

The lease doesn't have to explicitly mention solar panels. It's a matter of whether some more general terms in the lease allow the landlord to charge this extra £4.20 per day.

As a starting point, you could ask the landlord which specific term in the lease they are relying on to charge you the extra money.

I'm not really familiar with commercial leases, but I guess the lease allows the landlord to re-charge the cost of the electricity supply to you. The precise wording of that term might help decide whether you can be charged extra for the solar panels.

Jonboy_1984

Did the landlord bill you for all electricity via a sub metering system whilst you were there, or did you have your own contract with the energy supplier?

user1977

jb201 said:

user1977 said:

What does your lease say about it?

It's not in the lease as he didn't have solar panels at the start of the lease. He's made it up after they have been installed. 

Well, on what basis are they asking you to pay then? Is there nothing in the lease mentioning utilities?

GDB2222

Is there a feed in tariff on new solar panels? If not, what happened to the electricity that was not used?

jb201

To answer all of the above yes each office had a sub meter in the cupboard in the main area of the building and they used to send us photos of the meter. That's what is also in our lease.

Re the feed tariff I don't think he's managed to get around to exporting it as he asked me if I'd managed to do it with ours in our new office. 

He has literally just decided to charge £32 a day and split it between 8 offices, for which we are not there, so we are paying the same as everyone else for something we are not using.

He just sent me a bill for over £500 for just over 2 months electric when we haven't used any.