I live in a block of 12 bedsits.
Essentially, from what I understand, our landlord pays the electricity for the entire building. We then top-up submetres that are in the communal hallways for each of our flats. We are paying the increased rate, someone called when they noticed they were topping up a lot more and the landlord said that because their bill has gone up that they've had to increase the metre prices.
I have never received a bill and as far as I know I don't have an account with an energy company, I am technically reimbursing the landlord's bill/buying electricity from the landlord.
Now, from what I gather, if this is the case, then it is my landlord who would receive the £400 energy payments as he is the one with an active energy account. However, he should then tweak the usage on our metres so that he is not making a profit from us, so if his bill is X amount less now than our metres should reflect that and we should be topping up slightly less/less often. They tweaked it when the bill went up, so they can do it when it goes down.
But, I have spoken to a neighbour who said they rang the landlord about this last week. Apparently, he doesn't have a separate account/bill for each of the 12 flats, he just has an account for "Flats 1-12 @ X address" and pays for them all in one bill.
If he only has one bill for the entire property, then he would only receive ONE £400 payment, right? So then he would have to divide that £66 a month by 12 flats... Meaning £400 ÷ 12 ÷ 6, we would each only get about £5 help a month.
Does this seem fair? Surely it's unfair for the landlord who will only get one lot of £400 (but his own fault for setting up the billing this way?), and then unfair on us that the help is divided by the flats rather than being one each?
I have sent an e-mail after not being able to get through yesterday or this morning. Will try again this afternoon if no response.