Lobby your Landlord and Save on your Energy Costs

Are you in rented business premises?

If you rent your business premises and your energy costs are passed through as part of a “service charge”, you could save a lot of money. Ideally you want to be metered and billed only for what you use and pay a little or no Landlord handling charge.

It’s not good to talk.

Sorry to break the news, but most landlords do not like to talk. No news is good news! If they proactively interacted with their tenants they would be laden with toilet issues and leaky roofs. So, you’re going to have to take the bull by the horns and contact them.

What’s the point?

Your goal is to reduce the utility costs (electricity, gas and water) by at least 30% – this is entirely possible in a commercial rental. Simply check the size of your passthrough charge for utilities and, if 30% of that on your bottom line looks good, go for it!

What do you need to know from your landlord?

1. Transparent billing: Charges for electricity, heating and water.
2. Billing that meets your consumption: ensure that you are being charged relative to what you use. This especially important if you are one of multiple tenants – the bill could be being randomly divvied up.
3. Is the landlord paying too much for energy? They shouldn’t be paying more than 12 pence / kWh for electricity and 3.5 pence for / kWh for gas
4. What is their management “mark up” on top?

The short solution

The easiest thing to do is agree transparent pricing from your landlord with a reasonable management fee. Also, you want assurance that they are testing the energy market prices and switching regularly. Importantly you want the cost reductions to be passed through. to your business.

The longer game

The most sensible solution is for landlords to offer sub-metering that measures energy consumption in various locations in a building. As they say “what gets measured gets managed” – sub metering means that you can measure and reduce your consumption – this is a double win since you pay less and use less.

If you need help with this stuff, call one of our dedicated Switchologists™ on 01772 395338 or email cutcosts@switchmy.com.