I live on a park home site. Is the site owner charging us too much for electricity?

mikespurs

I live on a park home site and I've read that the site owner should only be charging me business rates for my electricity, when actually he is charged us £0.36730 per unit this time and last time it was £0.144116 per unit and I feel this is a big jump. Is the site owner charging us to much.

Tori_Scope

Welcome to the community @mikespurs  

This isn't something I'm too familiar with, but I'm sure another member will have some advice to offer you based on their experiences.

I found the following information on the gov.uk site. Is this what you're referring to? 

Targeted support

The government also announced today further details on the separate Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) to ensure that the £400 discount to households starting from October will also be available to the 1% of households who would not otherwise have received this support.

Additional funding will be made available so that £400 payments will be extended to include people such as park home residents and those tenants whose landlords pay for their energy via a commercial contract. The government is committed to ensuring such households receive the same support for their energy bills. The government will introduce legislation to make sure landlords pass the EBSS discount on to tenants who pay all-inclusive bills.

The government will also provide an additional payment of £100 to households across the UK who are not able to receive support for their heating costs through the Energy Price Guarantee. This might be because they live in an area of the UK that is not served by the gas grid and is to compensate for the rising costs of alternative fuels such as heating oil.

yanni

@mikespurs

I also live on a park home site and our electricity went up from 14p to 33p per unit when the owners renewed the electricity contract with EDF in June so if your site owner have renewed their electricity contract recently this is probably why the unit price has increased so dramatically. 

Landlords are not allowed by law to charge more for electricity than they are paying for it so it seems unlikely that the site owner would suddenly start overcharging you.

According to my MP, the Government are still working out how to distribute the £400 EBSS to park home residents so park home residents are not receiving the monthly £66 rebate off our electricity bills at the moment.

Wibbles

What is your standing charge (per day) ?

34.23p/kWh

42.77p/day

Is what Octopus energy charge me - so your rate is OK

poppy123456

32.24pKWh for me with Octopus.

48.29p/day

Katrinamary

I live in a park home. My unit price is now £ 1.09.... how?  I don't understand

Jimm_Scope

Welcome to the community @Katrinamary, I hope you feel comfortable here

I have to say, £1.09 per unit seems... crazy... the owner cannot charge you more than they themselves have paid. Have you seen evidence of how much they are paying?

chiarieds

Hi @Katrinamary - & welcome to the community. I also live in a Park Home, so sort of presuming your circumstances are similar to mine. My site owner says he gets the best business tariff he can at the time, so we too have seen an increase (but not as much as yours).

In this scenario, the site owner must pass on the electricity charges the same as he's paying when he resells it to you (so he cannot profit from this). There's a little info here confirming this: https://parkhome-living.co.uk/news/view/utility-charges-on-residential-park-homes

woodbine

A site owner can pass on what he/they are paying per unit plus a small admin charge, but they pay business rates for electricity which can now be quite high.

Jimm_Scope

I'm not sure how trustworthy it is, but from what I can see the current average business electricity price is around 30p per unit and a standing charge of between 50-250 pence depending on  the size of the business. Of course, that is current prices, if the business fixed their price at a higher cost this wouldn't factor into it at all.

I would read what chiarieds has put up, I'm afraid it's something I do not know much about, but they have experience with.

Katrinamary

Thank you every one..no I don't have proof and yes, we need proof of cost. Also, surely the site owner should do everything they can to bring the cost lower.... don't you think?

2oldcodgers

Katrinamary said:

Thank you every one..no I don't have proof and yes, we need proof of cost. Also, surely the site owner should do everything they can to bring the cost lower.... don't you think?

No to be honest, they shouldn't.

They have already paid the bill on your behalf and the least that they should do is expect you to reimburse them plus a little extra to cover their admin costs.

Jimm_Scope

@2oldcodgers The site owner cannot charge more for electricity than they paid for it. The administrative costs of anything they do should be in the rent.

2oldcodgers

Jimm_Scope said:

@2oldcodgers The site owner cannot charge more for electricity than they paid for it. The administrative costs of anything they do should be in the rent.

Swings and roundabouts then.
Increase the rent slightly to cover any small additional management charges. 

woodbine

Jimm_Scope said:

@2oldcodgers The site owner cannot charge more for electricity than they paid for it. The administrative costs of anything they do should be in the rent.

As a resident I can assure you that's not how it works, the are legally allowed to pass on the full cost of the electricity plus a small admin charge, not all owners pay the site for electricity many of us have our own supply, until quite recently the business cost of leccy was much much cheaper, it had however become dearer this last few months.

woodbine

2oldcodgers said:

Jimm_Scope said:

@2oldcodgers The site owner cannot charge more for electricity than they paid for it. The administrative costs of anything they do should be in the rent.

Swings and roundabouts then.
Increase the rent slightly to cover any small additional management charges. 

residents don't pay "rent" they own the property, and site fees can only increase once a year by CPI

chiarieds

Also speaking as a Park Home resident, who does reimburse the site owner for our electricity, we do own our own homes, but not the land they are sited on, hence why we pay site fees, not rent @2oldcodgers

Each quarter the site owner takes a meter reading, then we pay what it's actually cost him. He does try to find the best rate he can, as in his words, 'he hopes to keep his residents happy.'

 Our park is kept immaculate; the site owner is incredibly helpful even letting my son get rid of my old fence & decking through him as it would otherwise have cost my joiner, & therefore been passed onto myself. 

Unsurprisingly it's very difficult to buy a home here despite the demand as properties rarely come up for sale. I probably wouldn't have been able to buy my home if it hadn't belonged to my son's (at the time) future father-in-law, & my son also lived here.

Jimm_Scope

I apologise for my ignorance on the matter, the way I read it they couldn't add anything to the energy bill, not even extra charges.

Katrinamary

To be fair, I am ignorant to it too.. I have asked the question about the rate and I have received a letter saying that we are on a 2 year contract that expires October 2024. That is completely acceptable and understandable. However, I am still perplexed at the £1.9, it seems extortionate.  It is cheaper to use at night  on an economy type contract which is fine. I will come back to this later today as I have other things on but really - How can £1.9 be ok? Slight meltdown going on here! Thank you for your messages on this .. its a what to do next kind of thing 

2oldcodgers

There is a huge difference in price when comparing business/commercial fuel contracts and those for the ordinary man in the street.
It is one of the main reasons as to why businesses are closing down down especially those that consume a lot.

yanni

@Katrinamary

You are legally entitled to ask for “evidence to support and explain” any charges for  services payable by the occupier to the owner.

 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/consolidated-implied-terms-in-park-home-pitch-agreements/consolidated-implied-terms-in-park-home-pitch-agreements-factsheet#owners-obligations (see Section 22)

 So you could ask the site owner to give you a copy of the bill and an explanation of how they calculated the electricity to be £1.09 per unit. 

 If the owners won’t do this, LEASE  may be able to offer free advice on what you can do next.

 https://parkhomes.lease-advice.org/

 I live in a park home and my electricity is currently 34p per unit including standing charges. The contract is up for renewal soon and I expect it to increase but as you say £1.09 per unit seems excessive.