Is our landlady right to do it this way?

Lorlaa

My fiance and I recently moved into a rented house that has mains gas from Flogas which is great. However, our landlady (who owns all six houses around us) gets the bill sent to her for all of us instead of us getting it ourselves and then she comes and does a reading from the individual meters and gives us a hand written scrap of paper stating how much we owe her. I have three issues with her doing it this way:

1. We don't know how much gas we are actually using
2. It is never done regularly so we never know when our next gas bill is coming
3. She could be charging us over the odds for our gas and we have no way determine this.

She charges us €2.50 per unit but, having never had gas heating before, I don't know if this is the going rate or if it fluctuates or anything like that.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Dardania

I'm a bit confused by what you're describing, so to clear it up:

Do you have gas in your apartment i.e. going to your own boiler or gas fire or gas stove?

or, does the landlord have the gas boiler, and you get the heat from it for space and water heating?

Cause if it's the latter, then she is justified in charging you a consumption based service charge, however if it's the former, bord gais networks are the only people allowed to bill gas consumers, and she can't do it. Same as with electricity supplies - ESB Networks are the only body legally allowed to bill you.

Lorlaa

Dardania wrote: »

I'm a bit confused by what you're describing, so to clear it up:

Do you have gas in your apartment i.e. going to your own boiler or gas fire or gas stove?

or, does the landlord have the gas boiler, and you get the heat from it for space and water heating?

Cause if it's the latter, then she is justified in charging you a consumption based service charge, however if it's the former, bord gais networks are the only people allowed to bill gas consumers, and she can't do it. Same as with electricity supplies - ESB Networks are the only body legally allowed to bill you.

We have a house that has a boiler and gas fire and an independent gas meter out back

Outkast_IRE

cant you guys take meter readings yourselves , theres nothing to stop you ?

Im not saying its right the way she is doing it but at least taking readings yourselves you can check that and the unit price and know your not getting ripped off.

nick 56

If you can read the meter and see how meany units you have used. Check by phone or on the net how much it should cost per unit + standing charges and V.A.T.

Get hold of some one elses bill ( mum / dad ) to see how to do all this

Dardania

Okay, so very straightforward...

Why don't you take on the account yourselves - why does the landlady want to do it? Is she charging a markup on it? Possibly to cover the cost of installation...? I wouldn't be impressed with it, and would call the gas company about it

Lorlaa

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

cant you guys take meter readings yourselves , theres nothing to stop you ?

Im not saying its right the way she is doing it but at least taking readings yourselves you can check that and the unit price and know your not getting ripped off.

Yea we can, the problem with that is we're unsure of the price they actually charge per unit. So even if we do take a reading ourselves, we are still in the dark as to how much it should cost us.

Lorlaa

Dardania wrote: »

Okay, so very straightforward...

Why don't you take on the account yourselves - why does the landlady want to do it? Is she charging a markup on it? Possibly to cover the cost of installation...? I wouldn't be impressed with it, and would call the gas company about it

Yea I think we're going to have to do this. That's the thing, we just don't know if she's charging mark up on it because we don't know how much it costs per unit. She hasn't mad us aware if she is. I am really unhappy about it being this way but my fiance isn't bothered and keeps encouraging me not to call them jus to keep the peace and such.

DM addict

Lorlaa wrote: »

Yea I think we're going to have to do this. That's the thing, we just don't know if she's charging mark up on it because we don't know how much it costs per unit. She hasn't mad us aware if she is. I am really unhappy about it being this way but my fiance isn't bothered and keeps encouraging me not to call them jus to keep the peace and such.

you can find out from www.flogasnaturalgas.ie now much they're charging per unit - or you could call them and quote your meter number. You've a right to see the bills, at the very least.

Dardania

Your fiancée certainly has a point in that if you query the billing structure you could quite likely piss off the landlady, and she may be more inclined to inspect more frequently or some other petty method of annoying you.

However, with that in mind, it's your right to be in control of your energy costs - she is currently charging you on a flat cost of €2.50 per unit - that figure sounds very round, and there's no mention of rental.

Is there anything in your lease about it? See under "services" here: http://www.threshold.ie/page.asp?menu=70&page=240 - the landlady is absorbing the monthly rental cost into the 2.50 - which is wrong

Lorlaa

Dardania wrote: »

Is there anything in your lease about it?

For our lease/contract, we got a photocopied piece of paper to sign and she took it back off us. The whole thing has been very dodgey since the start.

Dardania

Dare I ask - rent book, and receipt for deposit? Landlady's PPS number for rent tax relief?

Mr. Presentable

If units are KWH as I imagine, you are getting a good deal

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/bord-gais-or-flogas-who-is-the-cheapest-for-gas.html

Lorlaa

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

If units are KWH as I imagine, you are getting a good deal

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/bord-gais-or-flogas-who-is-the-cheapest-for-gas.html

That's saying 3.57cent per unit. she is charging us €2.50 per unit so I imagine that either she's ripping us off big time or not counting a unit as Kwh. Either way I still think I want an actual bill direct from the company.

Lorlaa

Dardania wrote: »

Dare I ask - rent book, and receipt for deposit? Landlady's PPS number for rent tax relief?

All we have is a key!

tina turner

i'd ask for a bill under my name. safer for herself as well,yes?
i don't have rent book either,never had,but keeping receipts for the rent,even hand written.Best send them to account,so there's some kind of proof.keep your back covered

amdublin

DM addict wrote: »

you can find out from www.flogasnaturalgas.ie now much they're charging per unit - or you could call them and quote your meter number. You've a right to see the bills, at the very least.

If the meter/bill is in her name they will not give yiu any information

Mr. Presentable

Lorlaa wrote: »

That's saying 3.57cent per unit. she is charging us €2.50 per unit so I imagine that either she's ripping us off big time or not counting a unit as Kwh. Either way I still think I want an actual bill direct from the company.

I read it as €3.57 per unit. As per heading "€ cent per Kwh"

Lorlaa

tina turner wrote: »

i'd ask for a bill under my name. safer for herself as well,yes?
i don't have rent book either,never had,but keeping receipts for the rent,even hand written.Best send them to account,so there's some kind of proof.keep your back covered

Yea true enough. I like the idea of having it official. Most of the scraps of paper have been lost due to moving and such but I guess finding a proper place to keep them and have proof of everything if it does all turn sour.

Pay rent by standing order so we have a record of that and i guess that's the most important thing.

Lorlaa

amdublin wrote: »

If the meter/bill is in her name they will not give yiu any information

this is true and as I said before we have no proof that we live here.

Tails142

The gas meter gives a reading in metres cubed.

To convert from metres cubed to kwh you multiply by 11.4198

Bord Gais are charging 3.932 cent per kwh currently.

To make it easier, each full unit on the metre is €0.449, i.e. about 45 cent. This is excluding VAT (13.5%) and a carbon tax of 0.00277 per Kwh. There is also a standing charge of 16.4 cent a day.

So including all vat and charges approx 50 cent per unit on the metre, plus 16 cent per day.

If you're being charged €2.50 per metre cubed you're being ripped off.

Lorlaa

That's very useful to know! Hopefully I can keep on track of it better with that info!

bertie1

Just to throw a cat amontg the pigeons if you go for the bill in your own name you will also have to come up with a bond usually Euro 400.00 for the Gas electricity etc. If you are disconnected for non payment which can happen with rented houses then the land lady will have another reconnection fee to pay as well.
Ask her to see a copy of the bill for your meter

DM addict

I would contact threshold if I were you.

Ask your landlady for a rent book, copy of your lease, copy of a bill.

If you have no proof that you live there then... well, you should probably get some. Otherwise you've no security.

Also what bertie1 said about needing a bond is true, if you've never had a bill in your name before.

shoegirl

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

cant you guys take meter readings yourselves , theres nothing to stop you ?

Im not saying its right the way she is doing it but at least taking readings yourselves you can check that and the unit price and know your not getting ripped off.

She can rip you off as much as she likes. Effectively she is reselling you power. There is no law in Ireland to stop this. I had a landlord 6 years ago who started to charge me double the then ESB rate. Needless to say after 2 months of it I gave my notice. There is a law in the UK that prevents landlords from adding more than a certain percentage to tenants utility bills but there is nothing like that here. It is wrong, but not illegal.

shoegirl

Just checked the Threshold page and while they do say that the landlord "should" set meters at the standard rate and not hike up the cost to cover the cost of the PSO obligation/standard charge or a little extra on the side for themselves, I dealt with them on this situation myself and at the time there was nothing I could do in law to stop my landlord from charging me whatever he liked for ESB.

I know there is a law in the UK that permits landlords to add up to a fixed rate to meters but here there is nothing. It could be worth raising with the CER as they surely should be able to regulate resale of electricity which is effectively what some landlords do.

Most landlords are not stupid enough to try to make extra money out of tenants in this way, but there are still some who get cash from the tenant for a bill in their own name, but then write it off as an expense.

djimi

shoegirl wrote: »

She can rip you off as much as she likes. Effectively she is reselling you power. There is no law in Ireland to stop this. I had a landlord 6 years ago who started to charge me double the then ESB rate. Needless to say after 2 months of it I gave my notice. There is a law in the UK that prevents landlords from adding more than a certain percentage to tenants utility bills but there is nothing like that here. It is wrong, but not illegal.

Im sure if the ESB were informed that there is someone reselling their power for a profit they wouldnt be too impressed...

Antomus Prime

I'd definitely want the bill in my own name delivered to my door, you have every right to this. I wouldn't hand a cent over the the landlord without seeing the bills!

handlemaster

Lorlaa;

I don't see your problem. Just ask her for what you want. If she doesn't want to give it leave. There are lots of rental properties on the market at the moment. Its just to much hassel dealing with a landlady like this. It sounds very old school way of leasing properties.

quietsailor

Here's an excel sheet i made up to help us split the bills one month when we had different people in the house over the course of a 2 month bill.

Its set up for a Bord Gais bill so you might need to change the billing values. If you have the meter reading from when you moved in just read the meter again and it will tell you how much you've used to date and how much you should have paid **** remember unless you just had a bill and can read the meter it won't be precise. ***** it'll give you a rough idea of how much FLOGAS would have charged you to date. If you landlady's amounts are way higher she's increasing the rate. If its lower, well your on a winner

Either way this is a very unusual situation, I've never come across it or any of my friends have seen it done this way - we've always seen the bills as proof or instead had them delivered to the house or changed into our names

Graces7

We had a landlord do this once with ESB and oil. We were sure he was ripping us off so we asked him th change the bill to us; as we are on Welfare and getting the Household Benefit package he had to agree.

He was also not registered etc etc etc...