Extortionate gas bill - your opinions please!

[Sophie C]

I run a small letting agency, and usually things go pretty smoothly. However I've had a 'one off' today & was hoping for opinions from Landlords ( I have the tenants opinion!)
Tenant recieved £400 gas bill (for a quarter)!!
We checked the meter which seemed to be running fine, and then I had the boiler checked - also OK. However the gas technician also checked out the rest of the house & we discovered there is no insulation what so-ever!!

Said tenant has now given notice, and really can't aford to pay the gas bill. Although the landlord has no obligation to, do you think it is reasonable to expect the LL to pay something towards the bill??

the LL is abroad, & although I have been able to get a message to them, won't be able to speak to them until Thursday

Tenants have been great in every respect & I feel a bit sorry for them.

I won't relet the property on behalf of the landlord unless they are prepared to address the issue, i understand there are grants available.

All opinions greatfully received

Thanks

Sophie

[Ericthelobster]

Unfortunately I think it's probably fairly (very?) common for rented property to have substandard insulation, simply because it's capital outlay by the landlord for which he sees absolutely no return - very selfish but a fact of life I suppose.

As an aside: I bought a place quite recently which had been rented previously; I had to do a lot of work on it which included a need for an loft access panel in the ceiling, to facilitate rewiring etc (it had been newly plasterboarded but no provision made for a hatch). Like your tenant's place, I found not a shred of roof insulation up there - made even more outrageous by the fact that there was no way for the previous tenants to rectify the situation (or even find out about it!).

I'm pretty sure that there's nothing legally wrong with what your client's done, providing it's not a recent build or 'material change of use', either of which would compel compliance with Building Regs, and if he hasn't done so, and the tenant's aware of this, then at least that gives the tenant a bit of leverage.

Having said that, fitting of roof insulation of some sort has been a regulatory requirement for donkey's years (when I was a kid back in the 60s/70's, even my parent's house had an inch or so!). It might be worth the tenant having a chat with his local Building Control to see if there's any comeback, but I certainly wouldn't hold my breath if I was him.

[cnrsoper]

I think the tenant should be able to see how much gas is being used, just by how often the boiler is on and how long it takes for the house to get cold, once the heating is off. Having said that probably better to try to make her happy.

[P.Pilcher]

It is a question that only the landlord can answer: In reality he is expected to invest money to save his tenant money. He may consider that it is worthwhile as he can reflect this in his rent charged and lower number of voids, but only he can decide. It's a difficult one.

P.P.

[cnrsoper]

that sort of attitude is what is going to lead to more laws, which are on the way, if landlords don't smarten up. It happened with HMO's so expect more with that attitude.

[Paul_f]

Sophie runs a small letting agency, but she doesn't have enough knowledge to ask her landlord clients questions in advance of taking on the property in order to make sure it is of reasonable standard.

She must also not take the side of the tenant as she has no legal obligation to them and only to the landlord. It's a tough world out there but she shouldn't be getting involved in this matter, even though she is obviously trying to be helpful.

Agents will not spend £300-400 getting properly trained when they start out [and not even when they have been in business sometime when they still haven't always learnt what to do]. It's only the proverbial "matter of time" before you will get caught out as in this instance.

Sorry but as soon as you nail your colours to the mast so to speak you are deemed to be an "expert" even if you know diddly-squat!

[Sophie C]

I was wondering how long it would take before some-one just HAD to put me down for being a letting agent.
I have in fact invested a great deal of money in training, certainly more than £400 including ARLA training courses, Diploma in RL&M & more that I won't bore you with. I have not had one dissatisfied client in the 2 years I've been in business.
How many letting agents check the property insulation before they take it on?? Certainly none I know of around here.
In this profession there will always be 'one off' situations that you can't prepare for, this is built up by experience, I guess you weren't born with the knowledge Paul, I presume you have been through the learning curve like every-one else. Are you saying that you don't come across situations even now, that you could do with a second opinion on?
Paul, although I respect your knowledge and extensive experience in the field, your comments upset me and you didn't answer my question. It's a shame you have to be quite so damming, and not a little more helpful.
I hadn't been on this forum for quite some time as it became quite petty, but thought I'd give the new one a go. :(
Thank you every one else for your comments, they are greatly appreciated.

[Paul_f]

Okay Sophie I'm going to eat humble pie here because you've told me what I want to know. You have an excellent qualification, and deserve your success! The Dip. RLM is very new so it must have been recently.

However if you have a "check list" with you to complete at the property when taking it on whether to sell or rent you're not going to miss much. If the owner isn't there then it's a reminder to ask later. With any property that's over 30 years old you need to ask about both roof and cavity insulation. A selling agent would nearly always ascertain this and the HIP's that will be coming in will make all the necessary information available to purchasers. It would be good practice also to have much of this information to hand to advise landlords of the best apporach for preparing a property to rent. :)

Forgive me but I broke my neck in a car accident three weeks ago and am couped up at home for another 2 weeks. And to think your business has suffered. Mine's closed altogether for the time being!

[Sophie C]

Thank you Paul, I will be adding this to my check list immediately.
Sorry to hear of your accident, I hope you make a speedy recovery.

[zaphod]

I very much doubt lack of insulation has much to do with it. My own flat isn't insulated and I don't use anything like that kind of gas.

More likely that over a period of months or years the gas bill has been calculated on estimated readings, the gas company has finally got an actual reading and has based the bill on that. It can be quite a shock. Happened to a group of my tenants. I had central heating installed where there was only gas for cooking previously. All their bills were then then based on estimated readings, which of course didn't take central heating requirements into consideration. Their final bill was massive but they had to pay it as the usage was theirs.

Or, as happened to another group of tenants, they got lumbered with previous tenant's unpaid bill as although provided with correct meter readings on moving in (one of the rare occasions I didn't sign them up myself ) they didn't use them to sign themselves up and the unpaid bill just rolled over. They phoned me two days ago to tell me they had just got a bill for £500 (around 18 months usage!), they've been there 5 months. When questioned closely they admitted that the bill was addressed to "the occupier" and they had changed supplier without even signing up to original supplier in the first place! Duh!

Check the start and finish meter readings for the property and see if the readings are estimates. If the appliances are certified they won't be using that much gas unless of course the tenant leaves the heating and cooking appliances going day and night!
(and then doesn't want to pay for the privilege!)

[zoe]

zaphod

When you are renting a property out the actual meter readings should be used for the final bill so the situation you are talking about should never occur. Each tenant should only pay their usage and never for previous tenants.

Zoe

[zaphod]

Which is exactly my point Zoe!

If you go back and read my posting carefully, you'll see that I said the only occasion I didn't put the bills into tenant's names, using the final meter readings etc is when it went wrong. They told me they had already done it and then it turns out they hadn't! And then they changed suppliers to boot.

Also, I find that most tenants don't correct estimated meter readings with actuals and therefore get a big shock when their final bill comes along! They never seem to question why the bill is so low per quarter!

Or you get a big group in one house, one collects the money for the bills and then the others find out months down the line when that particular individual has left, that the bills haven't actually been paid, they are doubly out of pocket.

Or another property is actually attached somehow to the gas supply. Have had this one happen before too!!! ;)

Or a previous (or even current!) tenant gives a fictitious name to the supplier, runs up a bill, then departs, leaving the landlord and/or new tenant to sort out the mess as the suppliers have a nasty little habit of getting a new name onto the old bill (had this one happen to me too!).

All I'm saying that assuming there are no leaks etc, you'd have to go some to run up a £300 -£400 bill in one quarter and insulation may make a little difference to bills, but not £300 in one quarter!!! Otherwise I'd insulate everything in sight!!!