How to charge ‘tenant’ for electricity usage over set amount?

[ElectricQuery]

My elderly mum has a person moving in as part of a Homeshare agreement. The sharer gets free accommodation in exchange for 10 hours of help in the house per week.

It’s an old house with no central heating so heating is via plug-in electric heaters.

What would be the best way of setting a ceiling for electricity use, above which the sharer has to contribute to the electricity bill? I just don’t want mum to potentially be left with a huge bill.

Could use a plug-in electricity usage monitor on the heaters in the sharer’s bedroom. She’d need one for each heater in her room. I’m not sure this is viable solution.

Any ideas of a better way to do it?

(The company who set up the Homeshare are no help on this.)

My mum used electric convector heaters as her storage heaters were madly expensive. She had all the heaters on timers so they wouldn't be left on accidentally.

I’d stipulate that the electric bill is £180 per month in the winter months on average therefore if the electric bill is over £200 on a winter month then they’d need to be contributing the extra

make sure the meter is read monthly and submitted

I know. It sounds like an utter con. I can't imagine theres much admin etc required once the arrangement is set up.

My mum is paying £200 per month. I’m not sure about the sharer.

That wouldn’t be necessary at all. Reasonable use is covered by mum, just trying to avoid excessive use.

From homesharers perspective 160 pm + assistance/companionship @ 40 hours a month (say 400 quids worth) is nearly 600 quid. Okay the companionship/assistance is in kind, but to then ask for extra for utilities is frankly not in the spirit of the arrangement. Surely a conversation with the sharer beforehand on expectations would be better, then you can both decide if it’s suits. Your mum might like to be in bed by 9 each evening, but would that suit the homesharer, who needs heat, perhaps tv or laptop, shower each day. if additional cooking is offered/expected, how do you work that out? Only for meals shared or is every slice of toast to be monitored?

If the home share company aren’t helping they are not earning their fee.

I don't think your Mum's views on heating are shared by the majority of people. There will be problems. IMHO.

Unless I’ve miscalculated (possible!) then £700, at the new increased unit cost of 24.5p per KwH is 2,857 KwHs. Which is 122 a day, or the equivalent of more than 2 fan heaters on full 24 hours a day.

Or, working the other way, if the home help has one fan heater on full 12 hours a day every day it’ll cost just over £40 a week. Is having someone around worth more or less than that?

Wow. What for exactly?!

I agree with this, and I speak as someone who didn't live with central heating till I was in my 30s - now in my 50s and prefer to put on more clothes and carry a hot water bottle than put on the heating. However, I also recognise that other people prefer a heated house and so if I have visitors I put the heating on.

Your DM may be happy living in an unheated house, but I think it has to be recognised that she is quite unusual in that these days.

An expectation that heating is not on when the person is out - fair enough, but I'm not sure how that could be monitored.

How about a calor gas heater for the companion's room? Which your DM would pay for.

Just get a heater with a app control. Timers and thermostat settings. Ones that both your mum and the sharer can see.

Then easy enough to check it not set at 25 degrees or on when they're out. I keep my heating at 19 for a few hours a day in winter- this seemed normal when compared to other mn thread about heating last year.

Not sure why everyone is acting like people are being asked to live in a shed. There is heating but OP just doesn't want her mum paying for tropical temperatures when no one is in!

I’m sorry, but I think this would be really unfair. It sounds like your mum has exceptionally low heating usage and accepts conditions most people would not want to live in, especially if she ‘hardly ever’ used the boiler. You can’t expect that increased usage will be only slightly above what it is now, but should expect very noticeably increased bills.

Plug in electric fan heaters eat electricity and we’re heading in to a winter and coincides with solar maximum which apparently means it’s likely to be cold (the last solar maximum was the beast from the east!) i’m not sure plug in heaters are going to cut it!

Presumably, although you mum doesn’t have a smart meter shoe has a traditional meter with a kWh display. You could take a reading now and then set up an agreement where her and a live in helper pay half each, moving forward.

You can’t define excessive use of electric heaters though. If someone is cold, they’re cold. People disagree all the time on heating, so what if the helper is freezing and your mum decides that their need for warmth is excessive?

Heating needs to be included as part of accommodation, and should not be restricted.

I haven't heard of type of arrangement before and tbh it sounds crazy, the company gets money from both sides for what exactly, the sharer lives almost free for less than a couple of hours a day of "work" and the home owner bears all the extra cost.

At the risk of being a negative Nellie this has disaster written all over it

700 if it was January and a cold snap would not actually have been ridiculous. Most peoples bills are only lowish year round because they dont use heating at all from April to September, and this offsets the very high costs that can come in Dec- Jan. Electric heaters are a ridiculously, ridiculously expensive was to heat a space.
I bet your mum sits in one room and barely heats the rest of the property. Another resident would mean not just one extra room being heated but several eg the kitchen bathroom and hallways.
As another PP has said, your mum isn't providing free accommodation really - the sharer is proving £6-800 worth of care in the home (cooking meals is absolutely providing care).

I would imagine your mother only baths once a week - the companion will most likely wish to do this daily - that's a normal requirement that a lot of elderly people don't have - and the costs for heating will spiral due to electric heating costs - this is also to be expected.
One thing you might be able to do it to ask Octopus what the expected energy use would be for a house of your mother's condition using portable heaters. I don't know how helpful they will be but they will have that kind of information - they used to estimate all bills. If they can't help, the Citizen's Advice might also know or the Consumer council. There might also be an online estimator.

Who is paying for the food the companion needs to cook to eat with your Mum?

Your Mum is paying 25% more in her council tax -£50/month, £200/month and getting 40 hours free care (this is care just not personal care) @ £20/hour so probably worth £800/month, so financially your Mum is getting a very good deal.

What an absolute racket! What does your mum get for her fee? She would be better putting that £200, plus extra in council tax, electricity and food, into paying for appropriate care.

Who decides when though? Does the helper have to be present for all meals?
It sounds like the Victorian set up where a poor relative (usually a single woman) would move in with richer family and would be expected to be grateful to get to be a s
Dogsbody!
I can't imagine anyone would agree to the 'anything over £X is for you to pay' how would you prove who caused that usage!

How does she have hot water? An electric tank?

You can look at past payments from your DM’s bank account over the years and go from that as a starting point.

How’s the water heated if there is no boiler? Immersion? Aga? Whichever, isn’t that just as likely to increase the energy costs as the heaters?
The Homeshare agreement PP linked to (assuming they will all be similar) suggests a nominal contribution of £20 per month from the Homesharer to cover increases in utilities. I imagine asking for anything more than the suggested amounts in the agreement would be seen as exploitative.