Landlord has upped my metre to £4 a day

[Ccickenroast]

Hello I currently live on top of a shop and we are on a sub metre so the main supply runs from the shop but I pay for my eletric tokens for my own prepaid metre. So I give the shop the money for my eletric token to help contribute to the main metre. Now the shop has recently become vacent so now the landlord has had a bill. Which he doesn't want to pay it seems. So he said for me to pay him in installments or he does something to my prepaid metre. So since Friday evening when I topped up I've gone from £37 to now £25 and its only Sunday! Is this right hes put my metre to start at £4 a day?

So he's basically charging me more in the metre than what I'm buying and plus I'm not even intitled to the rebate. Seems unfair I mean I'm spending triple of what I normally do. Just because I said i wasnt liable for the bill. It was this set up or the installments every month to pay him back.

He did say wounld be spending alot more. I probably would of been better of doing a monthly instalment. But even then I'm not sure im liable and not sure if half of it is the shops bill. I cant afoffrd to be paying another property's bill.

Even more frustrating that all bills are in his name due to the main supply metre being in the shop. So I have nothing in my name or billing me on what I use separately from the shop

Bit confused why you are not entitled to the rebate - you are paying as a resident (i.e. non-commercial in a separate property)? My understanding is that landlords are not allowed, by law, to withhold the reduction payment.

Have you contact CAB or Shelter yet? You really need some professional advice on this. Think another PP asked you this, but is everything else legit? e.g. tenant deposit scheme, registered landlord, etc.

Plus you need to separate the supply asap, and get billed in your own name flat address.

I have to email the bill to ciztens advice which I have and there calling me back tomorrow as they are sure that this isn't right either. What is confussing me also is hes giving me the right amount in tokens like I gave him £20 in cash he gave me then £20 eletric tokens. So he's selling me the right amount as what I'm buying but yet he's altered the metre so I run out faster there fore I'm buying more and more tokens of him. So is he selling them to me for dearer if he's turned the metre up.

808Kate1 tries asking hin so many times to put me and the shop in seperate metres he won't pay it. He is reluctant to pay anything. For example I know this is nothing to do with the thread. But for example my flush system broke so I called British gas as the landlord has a monthly package I needed a while new flush system. So British gas said they can fit one that day for £100 the landlord turned his nose down to paying the £100 and fitted it himself on which I had to wait 3 days for him to do. Had to throw buckets of water down the toiket for 3 days. When I could of had it all done there and then but he wouldn't pay the £100.so this kind of somes him up.

Think I cant have the rebate due to him claiming for a commercial place rather than residential as I'm running of the shops layout it falls under commercial I think. I'm really confussed about the rebate.

Well I'm glad you've been in touch with CAB and they should be able to give you sound advice.

Obviously don't know your financial situation, but if you can move to a new place I think you should seriously consider it.

There is nothing questionable about the arrangement of the sub meter installed by the landlord - it’s a really standard arrangement for places like HMO, caravan parks etc which have one supply and many consumers. Here is the ofgem guidance: www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2005/10/11782-resaleupdateoct05_3.pdf

The things the landlord is doing wrong:
trying to retrospectively charge you for electricity he’s already sold you at a rate below the cost to him
now selling you electricity at twice what it costs him

These are the points you need to raise with him.

if you continue to consume 4 kWh of electricity per day when he corrects the rate on the sub meter to reflect the current rate charged by the supplier it is going to cost you about £5 per day (4 * 125p) plus whatever proportion of the standing charge is agreed.

Yes been looking today for some places. This has only become a problem since the shops been vacent he didn't really care when the shop was sorting it. Its only now he becomes liable for the shop it's all come about.

It looks like the shop tenants have been subsidising you for some time but the amount you used was probably negligible in the overall bill so was never challenged. It would be so interesting to know what the unit rate was set to prior to him adjusting the sub meter. It was clearly way below the actual cost.

I was useing about £1 a day. So iwas useing exactly what I was paying him for eeltricrlty. But then he hit me with the bill from the shop and said i had to pay him in installments or alternatively do this thing which he's done with the metre where its taking £5 a day on top of what I'm useing so I had £25 lastnight at around 9pm then woke up this morning had £23 now i have £20.60 buy the time 9pm comes it would take me to £19 or £18.ive gone from £37 since friday seems to much.

I think Galliano is saying your rate was too low previously so, whilst the meter was saying you were using £1 a day, you were actually using significantly more but just not paying for it,

it’s a horrible mess. I hope you can get it sorted soon.

Have you asked the LL if there are any refrigerated units still on in the back of the shop at all?

He was reselling you electricity at a far lower rate than the electricity supplier was charging for it. It sounds like he was charging you about 25p a kWh for what you used whereas the actual cost was 119p a kWh. This is bad planning by him - he should have been more organised to avoid selling at a loss.

Now he is reselling you electricity at around double what it costs him to try and recoup the difference between what the electricity for the entire premises cost him from august to October and what you paid him for it. He’s not allowed to do this.

He is allowed going forward to charge you what the electricity you use from now onwards costs him. This is the maximum rate he can set up your sub meter to charge. The rate he can legally charge is a lot higher than you have previously paid him so your electricity from now on is going to cost about £5 + a standing charge share per day. You can reduce the ongoing cost a bit by consuming less but realistically you’re not going to get it back down to £1 per day as only using 1 kWh per day is practically impossible.

It seems alot that it's almost taken £20 since friday evening.

BeingHeldAtHunPoint they've taken all there fridges etc with them. This is what I cant understand seems to much of a bill to be going on my use alone. I mean the bill from when they vacated the property up until October was £769 hes taking some off cuz of the rebate and the electricity tokens etc so said i had to pay the rest back in instalments