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OTHER GUIDES & TIPS

Energy Crisis - Landlords slam scaremongering over handouts to tenants

The National Residential Landlords Association has hit out at what it calls “baseless suggestions” that landlords will not pass on energy rebates to tenants. 

The association does not name the people behind the suggestions, but both Shelter and Citizens Advice have recently issued statements expressing concern that some 585,000 renting households currently paying an all-inclusive some to their landlords may not receive the £400 handout this autumn. 

Ben Beadle, NRLA chief executive, says: “Payments from the government’s Energy Bill Support Scheme are not due to begin until October. Given this, it is irresponsible scaremongering on the part of some to be making baseless suggestions that landlords will not do the right thing by their tenants.

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“The support payments should help whoever is shouldering the costs of increased energy bills. That could be either a tenant or the landlord.

“Where rents include the cost of utilities, if they have been set to reflect recent and likely future energy price rises landlords should be passing the savings from the Government’s scheme onto their tenants.

“However, where all-inclusive rents do not reflect the higher costs of energy, or where rents have been frozen to support tenants, then it is the landlord who will be shouldering costs of higher energy bills. In cases such as this the system should recognise that it is the landlord that needs the support.”

Beadle continues: “One off pots of money like this cannot disguise the need for fundamental reform of the benefits system to support vulnerable tenants and landlords alike. This needs to include unfreezing housing benefit rates and giving tenants the choice, if they so wish, to have housing cost support paid directly to their landlord.”

Last week Citizens Advice won publicity with a report saying: “With predictions that high prices are set to be a feature of the energy market at least until well into next year, this creates fresh urgency to future-proof protections for renters, including ensuring they can control their energy supply, and aren’t subject to practices which exclude them from the market such as sub-metering.” 

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, backed up the claims, saying: “Tenants whose energy bills are included in their rent or service charge cannot directly claim the energy discount. Instead, they will be at the mercy of their landlord passing on this much-needed support.”

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  • George Dawes

    So much for renewable energy=, anyone seen the YouTube video of how those huge great propeller things are buried in landfills as they’re totally un bio degradable

    The whole green agenda is a load of utter crap

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    NRLA and leading figures in the industry and tried to reach out to such organisations such as Shelter (who dont provide any) and they are not interested, as it does not suit their narrative, so maybe its time to fight fire with fire ...why not a campaign to discredit Shelter and the like and expose them for what they really are!

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    Totally agree Carl. I’m with anyone who wants to join forces to highlight what they really are. Think how many homeless could be helped with Neate’s Salary alone, which is how many who give to Shelter wrongly believe the funds go to help.

     
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    Unfortunately the NRLA is a waste of space itself. They do no PR whatsoever to present the landlords position whilst Shelter and the like have a daily barrage of unfounded claims.

     
  • John Ahmed

    The charity Shelta is a disgrace. All they do is behave negatively towards the private housing sector and pay their own salaries from the monies raised.

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    The rubbish Neate spouts is indeed a disgrace. It’s simple whoever pays for the fuel should get the benefit of any relief. How anyone who cons the public purse and charitable nature of good people into paying a six figure salary for simply spouting drivel can condemn others for not passing on funds they use to keep others heat and light on is beyond belief.Shelter the charity (business) that houses no one.

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    Landlords are painted as dishonest criminals, not hardworking people providing an essential service which is the truth 99% of the time.

    And the reason for that is because the ideas being promulgated are Communist and aimed at the redistibution of wealth, not the improvement of the private rental sector.

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    If they wanted improvements in the private rental sector they would be using the carrot, not the stick. The stick just makes people go away - exit the private rental sector.

     
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    I include utilities and Council Tax in the rent for several HMOs and student houses. So far I haven't increased rents for any existing HMO tenants. For some people that's over 5 years without a rent increase. As rooms become vacant they are re let at current market rents which are usually higher than the previous tenant paid. The number of enquiries for any vacant rooms is huge so clearly prospective tenants think the rents are acceptable. The comment I've heard repeatedly in the last few months is that they want the certainty of bills inclusive rent.
    The fact that rents can only be increased annually mean we have to try and guess what bills will be like way in advance of any pricing announcements. If we get it wrong we're stuck with it for 12 months. When we could sign up for competitively priced one or two year energy contracts for gas and electric the only thing we had to worry about was the number of kWhs our tenants used. Now the fixed term contracts are so much more expensive than the price cap we have the uncertainty of what the cost of those kWhs will be every time the price cap changes. The fact Ofgem and the media only talk about the average consumption of a mythical house is incredibly unhelpful. The only information we need is the per kWh unit price and daily Standing Charge. I know that my houses use between 2500 and 7000 kWhs of electric a year and between 10000 and 20000 kWhs of gas. Different number of occupiers, different heating controls, different EPCs, some have solar panels, etc. This time last year I was on fixed contracts with Symbio, Neon Reef, PFP, Avro, Zog and EDF that were mainly supposed to run until this summer. I certainly didn't put all my eggs in one basket! Only one of those companies hasn't gone bust yet and their billing is horrific. So since last autumn I've been paying far more for electric than I would have been if those companies hasn't gone bust. The £400 is a fraction of the extra utility cost I've already incurred. All of my houses were denied the £150 Council Tax rebate as the CT bill is in my name not the tenants names. If the council had mentioned the requirement for the bill payer to be both living in the house and named on the bill on the 1st of April before April I could have at least given my tenants the option of setting up the paperwork so they could claim it. However, the council waited until July to mention the requirement.
    So if activists want to make themselves useful they should campaign to make Councils hand over the Council Tax rebate. To discriminate against people purely because they live in an HMO is outrageous.
    In reality these rebates should go to the person who is paying the bills and taking the risk. If it's bills inclusive rents the landlord has already had nearly a year of unexpectedly high utility costs and the forecast is for another year of huge increases. If the tenant is directly charged for the exact number of kWhs they use they should get the rebates.

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    You've done well to outline the principles we should be following, Jo.

     
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    FINALLY THE START OF A CONSENSUS , we should be directly attacking the hate and lies of the 3 big and wealthy hate gangs expose the lies and propaganda of these gangs challenge all of their disinformation agenda demand proof of all their allegations

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