SUB METERS
I’m thinking of splitting a commercial office unit in half and creating a residential flat at the rear of the office. Quotes for new connections for electric and water are astronomical because they would involve road closures. Sub metering has been suggested. Has anyone any experience of sub meters and how does it work? The office presently has both water and electric meters which are on commercial tariffs which are higher than domestic tariffs. Advice please.
I have places where I have fitted sub meters . Works great . You can get pre paid card sub meters See Ebay . Then set your own tariff on it at the rate you are paying
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You have to be careful with the price set for the submeter. You’d be a ‘reseller’. From the Ofgem site.
The maximum resale price is the most that anyone can charge for resupplying gas or electricity which has already been bought from an authorised supplier. It is set by Ofgem.
Anyone who charges more than the maximum resale price may face civil proceedings for the recovery of the amount overcharged, and may be required to pay interest on the amount overcharged.
From 1 January 2003 the maximum price at which gas or electricity may be resold is the same price as that paid by the person who is reselling it (“the reseller”), including any standing charges.
Being a LL is fraught with difficulties and it is easy to inadvertently do something that is not lawful. On the other hand, tenants are also unaware of these issues so the chances of you being taken to task is low. However if you run a business, you’ll need to check yourself. Sometimes people on the internet can make mistakes. I know I do.
that is exactly why I said set the tariff at the rate you are paying
I have exactly this situation with 6 flats. I just bill them every three months or so. It is a bit of a palaver working it out, but I am not planning on changing it because of the costs. You have all the information you need on your own utility bills. You charge the same unit price based on submeter readings and divide the standing charge by the number of properties. For gas you need to apply a conversion factor to change cubic metres into KWh. The conversion factor should be on the bill. In our case we don’t submeter the water and just charge a set rate.
I make clear with suplementary clauses in the tenancy agreement that payment is made to us.
When prices went up tenants got a bit edgy . There was also a problem with the £400 rebate that we were supposed to get which caused a bit of agro. The government were very slow in implementing the system for offgrid but did so in the end. That was a one off though.
Mostly it works well, just another job though!
Its worth adding that if the use is residential only even though it is a large supply, you qualify for residential rates. I went through that initially as they didn’t believe the amount of usage could be residential but of course in this case it is.
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