The Lemon Fool

I seem to be missing something here...

There is outcry in the media at the moment about people who's rent includes bills, eg lodgers, rent a room, as the billpayer will get the £400 rebate, not the tenant.
eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62375576
But surely it is the billpayer who is suffering the increased costs? OK, some will have been passed to the tenant, but dpending upon the terms and timings surely it works both ways?

Or is it like the windfall tax on energy companies stories, where nobody mentions when they made record losses 2 years ago the govt weren't queuing up to bail them out.

Paul

typical media
they LOVE to blow up story....

DrFfybes wrote:I seem to be missing something here...

There is outcry in the media at the moment about people who's rent includes bills, eg lodgers, rent a room, as the billpayer will get the £400 rebate, not the tenant.
eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62375576
But surely it is the billpayer who is suffering the increased costs? OK, some will have been passed to the tenant, but dpending upon the terms and timings surely it works both ways?

Or is it like the windfall tax on energy companies stories, where nobody mentions when they made record losses 2 years ago the govt weren't queuing up to bail them out.

Paul

I agree, they are misinterpreting the problem. The real problem is caravans, mobile homes etc where householders buy their leccy from the site owner. They pay for leccy used plus a service charge to cover the wires, meters and site infrastructure etc to get the site power right to their homes. The site owner is a commercial customer so gets no rebate, even if they were willing to pass it on to individual mobile homes.

Similarly, off grid householders who generate their own leccy using diesel generators (house boats etc) also won't be getting it.

DrFfybes wrote:There is outcry in the media at the moment about people who's rent includes bills, eg lodgers, rent a room, as the billpayer will get the £400 rebate, not the tenant.

In my decades as a landlord I always charged the tenant separately for utilities and other costs if the tenant could not sign up for them directly for whatever reason.

This made more sense to me because the amounts they paid me for bills were a reimbursement and therefore not taxable income.

Moreover with the rent-a-room scheme, although I only took advantage of that once and just for a year, it is better to charge costs separately since there is a maximum limit on the tax-free rent - £7,500 per year. You can charge them more than that as long as it is for costs you incur. I would ask for two separate payments each month so everything was clear.

DrFfybes wrote:I seem to be missing something here...

There is outcry in the media at the moment about people who's rent includes bills, eg lodgers, rent a room, as the billpayer will get the £400 rebate, not the tenant.
eg https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62375576
But surely it is the billpayer who is suffering the increased costs? OK, some will have been passed to the tenant, but dpending upon the terms and timings surely it works both ways?

Or is it like the windfall tax on energy companies stories, where nobody mentions when they made record losses 2 years ago the govt weren't queuing up to bail them out.

Paul

There is another section of electricity users I can imagine having trouble getting the rebate. Those on pre-pay meters. How will the rebate work for them, I find myself wondering?

Mike4 wrote:There is another section of electricity users I can imagine having trouble getting the rebate. Those on pre-pay meters. How will the rebate work for them, I find myself wondering?

All explained at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer