All-inclusive tenants WILL get £400 energy bill rebate

This is utterly stupid. The increase in energy costs was not factored into any all-inclusive tenancy agreement prior to 2022, which means the tenant has not incurred any of the extortionate increases in energy cost. The energy rebate should be payable to the individual paying for the energy; which would be the landlord!

So the government wants to lump such "all inclusive" landlord with the additional cost of energy yet pass on the energy relief payments to the tenant who ISNT paying for the extra cost.

Everybody thinks that landlords are a bottomless pit of money. That's why so many of us are leaving the business.

This is only where the electricity amount is detailed in the all inclusive tenancy agreement. eg room =£x and electric usage =£y or Z units I think.
But if not identified exactly how much £ or how many units are included in the all inclusive rent then, as I read it, it may not need to be passed on to the tenant(s) as the Landlord will be paying the utilities in full.
Worth reading the draft legislation line by line/sentence by sentence (was taught to do this as part of my LLB!)

I don't get this. Excuse my ignorance as I don't do bills included. But if Landlord does bills included, he's paid the increased charges has he not? So surely he should be entitled to any refund back which has hurt his pocket?

Aah I see Mohammed says the same. So it is that simple then, we are not even smart, the Govt are thick & anti landlord.

Have I understood this correctly?

Last year’s bill say £1800

This years bill £2800 less £400 discount = £2400 and I must give £400 to the tenant?

Like all misguided political attempts to ‘lure’ in the Generation Rent Vote the legislation is rushed and poorly drafted confirming once again the complete lack of understanding of the day to day landlording business.
The politicians once again will increase costs for tenants ratter then ‘helping’ them
Even with the new price cap Gas costs will have increased for us from 1.99p/kWH to 11,07p/kWH from 1 Oct; an increase of some 550% or for our HMOs an ‘average’ total annual utility bill cost increase of some £10,000 pa from £4k/yr to over £14k/yr
Fine I’ll give my tenants £11 each per month back for 6 months and increase their rent by £139/month each just to cover the increase I face in direct costs
Many will struggle to afford it but do the government care about that ???

I don't see it that way Re Darren Peters.
Your example of this year's bill of £2800 for is less £400.00. But, not paid to the tenants as it is deducted from the amount chargeable to the tenants,
e.g. £2800 less £400. Amount charged to tenants £2400.
Unless I am wrong?

another total balls up from Gov plc without LOOKING at the details...I suggest stick with what Judith states above. Check the micro detail.

If bills are included as part of the contract then the tenant does not get a bill and so any bill is sent to the LL and the bill PAYER gets the discount.

Reply to the comment left by Mohammed Kadir at 22/09/2022 - 12:31We have HMO’s and have a fair usage policy built into our AST, this states that the energy costs are capped at a certain amount, which is fair and reasonable, and if costs are increased beyond this amount, the difference is shared equally between the tenants, this can be adapted if say someone is working from home often, they could be asked to pay mores. If a particular tenancy has become periodic and the capped amount needs to increase then we update our tenant/customers by email of the new capped amount. This is fair to both landlord and tenant in this situation. It really is not the responsibility of the landlord to pay the energy which tenants are using, beyond a fair amount amount allowed for in the rental payment. For me this is the only way forward. In this situation it is fair to pay to the tenants any rebate you receive. That said I understood that the payment was being paid into the energy account each month. Hope this helps.

Reply to the comment left by Stephen Johnson at 23/09/2022 - 05:51
I think Stephen's approach is the most sensible if you can get all of your tenants to cooperate. The issue is that if one or more of them won't play ball there is nothing I'm aware of that you can do to force them to do so. For this reason I think most HMO landlords will have to take this on the chin until the bills start to feed through to increase market rents. We all hope this is temporary and therefore something akin to the airline industry fuel surcharge would be the answer but again there is no sector wide agreement on inclusive bills and nothing in an AST to protect either side.

Fair usage should surely be based on KwH and not £££ so those clauses in agreements are not useful in this situation. Even if the fair usage was based on £££ I don't know of any way to enforce it if a tenant says it's not their responsibility.

When all is said and done the whole concept of an inclusive price for a bill that is variable (in usage and price) is flawed. It's always been a 'fudge' and has come home to roost because of this temporary spike in prices. The responsibility lies with landlords and sadly we must take the hit.