Landlords Electricity Supply

[MattThomas1989]

Hi Guys

After some advice here if anyone is able to help.

I am running the management company for a block of flats where I also live. We all own a share of the freehold.

I am looking at renewing our electricity supply for the communal areas and notice it's currently on a business rate (as it's paid for by our Management Company which is a Ltd). Does anyone know of any providers who would consider the landlords supply as domestic use rather than business use, as the standing charges on business accounts are quite high.

Curious if anyone has any experience in this area.

Thanks,
Matt

[Section20z]

All mine are on domestic tariffs, why not just get the mpan number and try and apply online for a domestic account ?
what's the worst that can happen.....

[Flashback1966]

We had the same issue. The Freehold in my name, but as I don't live there, it was treated as Business.

On business, they charge standing order, so if you have those push button lights, the cost of the standing charge is more then the electricity used.

They need to change the law. As Freeholder don't make a profit on any activity. e.g. refurbishment, re-painting. Yet, are treated as a business for electricity purposes.

[leaseholder64]

To the extent that the market is working well, the standing charges should reflect the standing costs of maintaining the meter, billing etc. The reason that business tariffs may all use standing charges is probably precisely because some businesses users have particularly low usages.

Domestic users generally have sufficient usage that the standing charge can be recovered, either by having different tariffs for the initial usage and later usage, or simply by having a single tariff, set to cover the standing costs for a typical household.

In a really effective market, everyone would have standing charges, but you might also find that a specially high rate was applied to usage in the kettle boiling breaks on commercial TV, because of the need to run up gas turbine generators.

[Gordon999]

If the property is a residential block of flats managed by a non-profit service charge account, , you should be able the open an account and pay 5% VAT

[Milhouse]

As above... you are residential in that you only pay 5% VAT however a lot of suppliers will only give you a 'business product' if you are a company or your use is over a certain amount - some business products actually give you a lower unit rate so this may be the way to go.

Shop around or go to a broker, you'll find huge differences in prices. We recently tendered our common area supply and some providers were double the cost of others, for no reason at all.

[TechMan]

Hello, when I took on the role of director for RMC the supply for the communal lights was with EDF. I noticed the charges were very high, and eventually found that by signing up for a year at a time (Fixed term contract) I could get a better rate.