Hi all,

I am currently living in a rented apartment with my girlfriend.

The block is run of an old oil burner for heating and water. We just got forwarded a bill for this years oil that the owner had ordered without asking us. Its another 1000 pound on top of the 100 pound we pay already every month. Its stated we have had 1200 liters of oil this year. The water is obviously on all year round but the heating is turned off by the owners between april and november. So we actually only have the radiators on from Nov-March. Even when they are on we only have them on in the main rooms (lounge and bedroom).

Does this seem a normal price for a flat consisting of only 1 bedroom,kitchen,toilet and lounge??

Also is he allowed to just order what he wants and then we have to fork out for what he wants, I checked the oil after winter and we still have 300 liters when the new delivery came.

Its very expensive and not sure how to approach the unapproachable owner.

Secondly, I have big given a breakdown of the rent that we pay per month.
It seems the home owners insurance is being paid by each tenant at a cost of 140 pound a month. Now am i wrong in thinking that the house insurance is for the owner to pay and the tenant takes a house insurance separately??

The reason i ask is because if the flat floods then obviously its on his insurance aswell as ours and then we have our possessions that are destroyed replaced. But if we only have his and the same thing happened then his insurance alone wouldn’t. So we obviously need our own insurance so i don’t know why we would have to pay his and ours at the same time.

your help is really appreciated

Nick

Hi Nick
Sounds like you’re worried that you might be being ripped off!
Firstly, £100 pcm plus an extra £1000 is a lot to pay for heating and hot water in what sounds like quite a modest sized flat. Whilst I can only offer a sample size of one for comparison, I’m paying around £100pcm total for gas and electricity for a 3 bed semi. Of course, the price of heating oil has gone up significantly in recent years, so it’s not as cheap as gas.
As to whether the landlord can bill you after the fact, that’s a tricky one. Check the small print in your rental agreement.
Re your last point, again the figures seem high. Are you paying £140pcm for insurance, or is this the annual premium?
The bottom line on all of this is that at the moment there are a lot of good rental properties about due to the downturn in the economy. If it was me, I’d be thinking of moving.
Hope this helps!

thanks for your reply,

yes thats 140 pound pcm,

Give notice and get out. You can get somewhere that is going to be a lot cheaper. I think you are right in that he would have to cover buildings insurance of which the tenants may pay a charge to cover this but £140 a month per flat is a lot. You would the. Cover contents insurance.

Just think what you could buy for your bike with all that extra money.