Heating and Hot Water charges

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39 comments
    • I’d rather not share the amount in public but feel free to email me direct to discuss further.

      Not happy about this, it’s creating more work for residents to take care of, the level of incompetency that has lead to this bill spiralling so high for 2 years until charging residents is startling. Not to mention my bill is completely wrong, will be calling them first thing Monday.

  • Does anyone know why Family Mosaic Residents have been charged 0.6058p per day but Genesis have only been charged 18p per day?

    FM Residents are being ripped off!

  • 60.58p/day I guess you mean, but… for heat? water? both?

    I’m a Family Mosaic resident, but in Forum House and I’ve been charged 37.41p/day for heat and 43.44p/day for water. That’s 80.85p a day, independently of usage! My usage costs are actually quite low compared to the standing charges.

  • Also, I have to check the documentation I was given when i moved in, but if I recall correctly, I was told that the cold water was included in the service charge and we’d only have to pay for the energy costs…

  • anyone else have to pay when you were holidaying? reason could be down to your thermostats; even if your main Drayton control is off from the mains, make sure thermostats are turn off or you will pay for it. It’s silly, poor electronics installation, what cowboys.

  • 18p to 60p is a massive difference! I’m also with FM and have the same issue, my standing charge is more than half of my hot water/ heating bill! It’s a disgrace them treating residents like that! We were NOT told about a standing chargeand now we have to pay £0.60 a day for it! Absolutely disgusting! Do FM and Genesis not realise that residents talk amongst each other.
    I hope FM read this and act on this! After making us wait 2 years this is how they decide to treat us! I thought housing associations were there to help people not squeeze them dry!

  • If Genesis residents only pay 18p per day, the actual cost is even less. Looks like a nice little money maker for FM.

  • Had my water bill in last week as a FM resident my bill has the higher standing charges on it. Sent a message to Dave to see if we can get residnts together to discuss this. Also spoke to other people from FH today and yesterday about there bills and everyone I have spoke to so far is not happy about it. Also bill is dated until January this year so when will our next bills be due adding a few more hundred to the bill.
    I have also been told to leave my control on for heating all the time and turn thermostats down when not in use as if the timer is used when it turns on the connections in the cupboard pop off leaving heating going constantly through the flat and have to keep asking concierge to check connections in cupboard which they get fed up checking. Is this charging me more this way.

    My gas bill before I moved to Forum House wouldnt of cost me half of the bill I received for a gas boiler heating and hot water when I wanted it and hot water that was HOT.

  • Could you please tell me, are you planning to pay anything now or are you wating till we will receive some explenation from them? I am really upset how bad Family Mosaic is managing our building and how they find the ways to rip us off. Really disappointing experience.

  • FH resident 2: I agree, it would be good to have a residents meeting to discuss this.

    Dorota: In principle, I’m going to wait a few days to see if we get some explanation/corrections or we meet. And anyways, there is no way I can pay the whole bill in one go at this moment, so at most I’ll call them to establish a direct debit to spread it over several months. After all, if they have waited 2 years and half I guess they can wait a few months more.

  • Hi,

    I have also recieved a large bill.

    Has anyone recieved a explanation for the high services charges?
    Is there a group complaint going forward that I could join?
    Will there be a meeting to discuss this?

    • There is an opt in letter going around Forum House & Quadrant Court. If you opt in, you will be contacted to sign the group complaint letter. More details to follow soon.

        • I have sent some letters out tonight posted in south cores letter boxes. I need to get some photocopies done tomorrow as have ran out of printer ink. Apologies for the delay if you dont receive it tomorrow.

          • Thanks, and no worries.

            By the way, it’s not clear from your message if you only posted it to South core’s neighbours because you run out of copies or because you’re not considering other cores. I don’t know about North and West, but for sure we, quite a few of Family Mosaic residents, are in the East core too.

  • Please can you also post for West Core. The charges are ridiculously high and we need to do somehting to reduce. I have questioned about the standing charge and I did not receive a response. Also I have been charged for heating when I don’t even use the heating – or leave it on?! I think they are trying to rip us off!

    • I have posted letters to numbers 141-286 I have been told that the other flats are billed through LRM. I have been told they already get there bills every three months and again have completely different charges. Can you let me know if this is correct.

      • Sorry, but it’s not clear in the letter, as it mentions both Forum House and Quadrant Court. The mailbox of which building???

        • Please send back to Forum House if that the building you live in. If you are not sure ask the concierge as they are aware the letters have been sent out.

  • I received a huge bill for water and heating after two and half years. I contacted EnvironEnergy about it. They told me that they are only billing on behalf of Genesis and that they are not providing me with any utility services. I wrote to Genesis seeking explanation for the delayed bill and the amount of it. Their explanation was the usual line that it has taken them too long to sort it out but from now we will be billed quarterly. That was September 2011. Haven’t received any other bill since.

    I realised that FM or Genesis cannot bill us for hot water and heating because they are not registered supplier of utility. EnvironEnergy Cannot enforce the bill because they haven’t provided you with any service.

    The high prices we are expericncing may be due to extra charges for EnvironEnergy for providing collection service to FM and Genesis.

    I suggest that all residents of both the FM and Genesis from both Forum House and Quadrant Court should team up rather than trying to sort it out separately and seek them to accept some financial responsibily for their fault. We should be prepared to start a fresh ones this is sorted.

  • Hi all, I am another unhappy resident trying to figure this bill out. I still haven’t paid the bill and not sure if I should pay for this or wait for an good excuse from Genesis. I rag Enviroenegy to get an explanation on the bill and they said Geneses has billed us based on estimate readings and w=if we can proof we have been incorrectly billed they can refund us the money however how wwould we be able to prove it? Has anyone resolved this issue or got any reasonable explanation for this ridiculous calculations? We should take action and don’t let it go so easily. We should have a quick meeting will residents an collect signatures to get this resolved asap. I haven’t received any letter yet.

  • I was fluming when I received the utility bill for heating and hot water!
    Firstly, I would like to point that it would impossible for FM/Genesis/EnviroEnergy (whoever it is) to sue approx. 150 residents when we ALL refuse to pay this bill. We should all club together to take them to court by appointing one solicitor to hand our case. FM has been taking us for mugs since we’ve moved in these buildings with the numerous errors they’ve made.
    If you notice on your bill, they have billed us TWICE for hot water under heating energy and water usage titles. How can we be charged hot water twice when clearly it should be once? On top of that, some residents did not move in straight away leaving the property empty (have proof of this as was exempted from council tax) and in addition, some residents i.e. single occupants are possible paying more or equal to that of family residents, which is unfair. I made a complaint to FM on 16APR. As usually, I received a letter that my complaint was logged and a Housing Team Manager called Deanne Jean-Marie was investigating it. I tried several times to speak directly to Deanne but to no avail (she did not return any of my calls, clearly no manners)! I had to make another complaint about the person who was investigation my original complaint to be told a letter replying to my complaint has been sent out. I finally managed to speak to Claire Stevens, Complaints Manager at FM about this situation telling her I did not receive any letter from FM advising of their findings. In a nut shell, FM told me over the phone the letter contained the following “The Managing Agents LRM not providing sufficient information to allow FM to issue bills, and denying access to site to inspect metering equipment to allow us to clarify what we were being billed. Access was finally granted November 2011”…”During this time FM looked to set up our own in-house team to carry billing, but it was not cost effective to do so, so this option was discounted”…”After Genesis declined to bill for FM we appointed EnviroEnergy in December 2011. It took 3 months to agree terms, and set up accounts for our residents, with bills finally issued early April 2012.”
    I told Claire this wasn’t our fault that FM tends to screw things up (also mentioning pass errors made). I asked Claire to clarify “water” under the service charge agreement which she could not do she’ll have to look into it. Also I scanned over to her a copy of the bill which she will liaise with EnviroEnergy. She said would call me back on Tue 15MAY …I’m still waiting for her call.
    We residents are stressed enough trying to survive in this double dip recession to have this shoved on our faces. Also looking at the bill this goes back to when we moved in right so how on earth did “EnviroEnergy” get the metering reading if they were NOT managing the heating/water prior to December 2011?

  • Any news or progress on this? I left the form with my details last week in the mailbox as request, but I haven’t been contacted back yet.

  • Well done everyone, hopefully we can get all signatures from both Forum House & Quadrant Court together and sent along with a complaint to the HA and Sarah Teather.

  • Hi all,
    I don’t think that leaving the petition letter with a concierge is a good idea,
    1. Most residents would not have a clue that it’s there and their signature is required
    2. Concierge can refuse to do that without authorisation from his management
    3. It will end up with FM before there will be even a one signature, so FM will have a chance to stop it using some legal excuses.
    My suggestion is that next week I will collect signatures from every single flat who have returned the opt-in letter in Qudrant Court, but I’ll need a volunteer from Forum House to do the same in FH
    If everyone is happy with that, I would kindly request who ever got any more returned letters to forward them to me (flat no mentioned on email distribution list)

  • To all residents,
    I believe all of you have received an explanation letter from the FM regarding the hot water and the heating.
    Is it just me cannot recall anything to be mentioned in the contract when we purchased the flat that we would have to pay some an account set up fees. As far as I can remember in the contract says: rent, service charge, and utility bills. Now they came up with some new charges (account set up cost £35+VAT, annual bill and collection charges £56.34+VAT) As far as I concern that has to be covered by our monthly service charge. Am I wrong?

  • I’ve just seen Family Mosaic’s letter.

    I find those fees abusive and kind of unnecessary. £56.34+VAT per year just to issue 4 invoices?

    But on top of that, I find that way of hiding the fees in the standing charges confusing, deceptive and prone to mistakes. Actually, I’ve been charged the 11.5p for almost 2.5 years and not only for the first one as the letter says. That’s a £60 overcharge!

    • Plus they still don’t say how they calculate the costs of heating each m3 of water, which is obviously different in winter than summer and also depends on the required temperature.

      By the way, they say the boiler in FH runs at 70C. I have only recently noticed an increase in water temperature (pretty much since we started to receive the bills and complain) and I’m quite convinced that the boiler has been running closer to those 50C that QC’s boiler provides but we are being charged the amount of energy that would have taken to heat it to 70C.

    • And something else:

      Even if we agreed with these extortionate fees (which I don’t), why do we have to pay them for the whole period since we moved until Dec 2011 if they haven’t been issuing bills during that time?

      Altogether, in my case, they want to charge me around £265 just for setting up the account and issuing the first bill. Are they insane???

  • I just got the letter from them today and think they have a cheek to pass the account set up costs onto us,.My bill has been billed for 3 years at the 11.5p per day. Considering enviroenergy have only just started billing us the charges for them should be wiped off. I notice at the end of the bill they are reviewing the billing with LRM. I would like to see a letter to explain how genesis work out there bills as the charges per day vary from 9p to 23p every four months whilst we have a set charge of 22.41p.

    I

  • I have received an e-petition to sign regarding this issue, but despite asking Forum House neighbours to sign it, the letter only talks about Quadrant Court. Forum House isn’t even mentioned and quite a few of the problems don’t even affect us or even if they do or we have similar issues, the letter is still only focused on QC’s.

    But more importantly, the letter doesn’t treat the water&heat billing problem with the necessary depth, which was the point of this signatures collection. It doesn’t say anything about the silly standing charges calculations, the abusive account set-up and annual fees for EnviroEnergy, etc. It pretty much just asks for the whole bill to be waived, and let’s be realistic, it isn’t going to happen (as much as I’d like it).