I own a building where we have been using a third-party company to calculate and bill tenants for their actual energy use. Tenants have been charged for this service by the third-party company in their quarterly bills and this is reflected in their tenancy agreements.
We are now going to do away with this third-party company and I am going to calculate and bill tenants. Am I legally allowed to charge tenants for my time to do this as long as I update all tenants’ tenancy agreements?
Under the tenant fees ban I wouldn’t of thought so.
You might want to consider making the tenants directly responsible for the utility bills. You would have to make a reduction in the rent to do this and since it would be a change in the tenancy agreement this would have to be done with the tenants agreement and a new tenancy agreement made out to reflect the new situation.
The layout of the building and flats make it much more practical and cost-efficient for the flats to be served by communal boilers and meters rather than a boiler in each flat. Therefore, it’s not possible for them to generate their own bills.