If you've noticed your home energy bills changing over recent years, you're not alone. The energy market has been unpredictable, with suppliers going out of business, price caps fluctuating, and rates rising sharply. Your communal building hasn't been immune to these challenges either.
Despite these difficulties, we remain committed to securing the best possible utility rates for the developments we manage.
When we create your service charge budget, we aim to keep costs as stable as possible year on year. This helps you plan your household finances with confidence. However, several major events have made this challenging recently:
You might be surprised by how much electricity your estate uses. Most estates have communal lighting in external areas and stairwells, but consumption increases significantly if your development has:
In the past, utility costs made up a relatively modest part of service charges. That changed dramatically in 2022 when UK energy rates soared.
We understand you want to see as little of your service charge as possible going towards utilities. That's why we carry out a thorough tender process for electricity and gas each year.
Our approach: We've aligned all energy contracts across our entire portfolio to end in September. This means we can tender for contracts in bulk annually, giving us stronger negotiating power to secure competitive rates.
The challenges we navigate: Securing good utility deals for communal buildings isn't straightforward. The meters at developments we manage are considered non-domestic supplies, often registered under the landlord or Residents' Management Company name. Because these are typically non-trading entities with no credit rating, some suppliers won't offer quotes or demand large security deposits.
We also need to ensure suppliers can handle the specific requirements of communal buildings and offer appropriate terms.
Our experts navigate these challenges by staying proficient in the energy market, negotiating effectively, and remaining committed to securing the best possible value for you.
By consistently applying this professional approach, we've secured highly favourable utility rates compared with the rest of the residential sector. We've also maximised the benefits of government energy discount schemes through rigorous checking of tariffs and funds.
If your estate has a communal heating system (widely regarded as more cost-efficient), we manage the additional complexity by obtaining readings from individual meters in each property. We use these to calculate a heat tariff that's recharged to each leaseholder, monitoring the funds carefully to ensure full gas costs are recovered and bills can be paid.
This is just one example of how professional property management delivers tangible value for leaseholders at the developments we look after.
