Electricity cards on marinas

[kiki]

Hi Everyone, can you advise us. Our Marina owner is fitting meters for our electric and will be selling the cards for £20.00 each, however will be charging us £1.00 admin fee for every card - does anyone else have this - what I mean is, can he do it ?

[alan_fincher]

The general topic of resale of electricity comes up regularly.

 

They are not allowed to make a profit on the actual resale of the units to you, (I think we finally agreed!), so the money can't get debited off the card any faster than what the operator is paying for it.

 

But they are allowed to charge for actual provision and maintenance of the supply, so I suppose it could be argued that what is (approximately!) a 5% levy for doing that is reasonable. In some ways it seems if you pay such a charge "pro rata" based on how much you actually use.

 

But are they specifically raising any other charge against you, (perhaps as a standing charge, irrespective of what you actually use), for the supply being available in the first place ?

 

That might be pertinent to the question too.

 

But in the absence (so far) of other info, my guess is that they are doing nothing illegal.

[AlanH]

Hi Everyone, can you advise us. Our Marina owner is fitting meters for our electric and will be selling the cards for £20.00 each, however will be charging us £1.00 admin fee for every card - does anyone else have this - what I mean is, can he do it ?

They are not allowed to charge any more for electricity than they pay for it. However they can charge for providing the facillity. On our moorings this costs £90 p.a.

[kiki]

Thanks guys that very helpful. I was baffled by what admin was involved in selling a card but that sort of clears it up. We are able to check on the meters how much our rate is so we will know if they are making a profit on the electricity. We are all insisting on a breakdown of all our charges as we are only going onto meters electricity and feel that the deduction made to our monthly payment is very low - so just want to get all our piglets in a row (is that the right saying)

Thanks

[Alan de Enfield]

I see this from both sides as :

1) We have a NB in a marina

2) We have a Caravan Park and charge out for the electricity.

 

1) We are in a BWML marina and buy £10 cards, the actual charge rate is shown on the meter by pressing a couple of buttons. The rate they charge is considerably less than we pay at 'home' so maybe they are getting a 'bulk buy' reduced price. There is no 'maintenance' fee added.

 

2) We have to charge out to our Caravan customers at exactly the same rate as we pay - but remember there is not only the actual 'rate' but there are environmental tarrifs (about 0.5p/unit) and VAT (20%) to add on so the rate you 'see' will not be the 'rate' on their elec bill.

The Caravan Council advises that we can charge a 'maintenance' fee and suggest £35 per annum (which is what we charge) this goes a small way to paying for the installation of the Infrastructure and having to have everything tested (by suitably qualified people) every year.

 

Yes - its always a good idea to have all your piglets Sausages in line.

 

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys that very helpful. I was baffled by what admin was involved in selling a card but that sort of clears it up. We are able to check on the meters how much our rate is so we will know if they are making a profit on the electricity. We are all insisting on a breakdown of all our charges as we are only going onto meters electricity and feel that the deduction made to our monthly payment is very low - so just want to get all our piglets in a row (is that the right saying)

Thanks

 

I thought it was ducks in a row -

 

anyway I would be watching out for any proposal to charge a service charge to your mooring costs over and above the £1 you are paying on each card.

 

We used to pay a flat amount each year to our marina (can't recall how much now) but they didn't charge an admin charge on the cards. It was 'all' electricity.

[mayalld]

2) We have to charge out to our Caravan customers at exactly the same rate as we pay - but remember there is not only the actual 'rate' but there are environmental tarrifs (about 0.5p/unit) and VAT (20%) to add on so the rate you 'see' will not be the 'rate' on their elec bill.

 

I do hope that you don't charge 20% VAT to your customers.

 

To do so would be VERY naughty indeed if you are VAT registered.

 

Regardless of the VAT that you pay on the supply, you are selling the electricity for domestic use, and should charge 5%.

 

As a VAT registered business you don't lose any money on the transaction;

 

Assume you are supplied with 1000 units of electricity at 10p + VAT per unit.

 

You pay the supplier £120

 

You supply this to the consumer at 10.5p per unit (5% VAT), and get £105 from the users.

 

At first glance you are £15 down on the transaction.

 

HOWEVER;

 

When you do your VAT return, you reclaim £20 as input Tax and pay £5 as Output VAT. HMRC pay you the missing £15.

 

I've played this game before with a mooring owner that was an out and out crook. Once we left, I asked for a refund of the overcharged VAT. He refused. He ended up talking to HMRC, and I got my money back.

[kiki]

I do hope that you don't charge 20% VAT to your customers.

 

To do so would be VERY naughty indeed if you are VAT registered.

 

Regardless of the VAT that you pay on the supply, you are selling the electricity for domestic use, and should charge 5%.

 

As a VAT registered business you don't lose any money on the transaction;

 

Assume you are supplied with 1000 units of electricity at 10p + VAT per unit.

 

You pay the supplier £120

 

You supply this to the consumer at 10.5p per unit (5% VAT), and get £105 from the users.

 

At first glance you are £15 down on the transaction.

 

HOWEVER;

 

When you do your VAT return, you reclaim £20 as input Tax and pay £5 as Output VAT. HMRC pay you the missing £15.

 

I've played this game before with a mooring owner that was an out and out crook. Once we left, I asked for a refund of the overcharged VAT. He refused. He ended up talking to HMRC, and I got my money back.

 

Nice one Dave - we have to tackle our lot head on very soon, the meters are going in before the next 2 weeks is up. Everyone is looking at the Kikmeister for answers as he is the Sparky but so far all the work is being done by the owners themselves so cheap and not too cheerful is the order of the day.

[Alan de Enfield]

I do hope that you don't charge 20% VAT to your customers.

 

To do so would be VERY naughty indeed if you are VAT registered.

 

Regardless of the VAT that you pay on the supply, you are selling the electricity for domestic use, and should charge 5%.

 

Quite correct - sorry I diddn't make it clearer.

We pay VAT at 20% (and reclaim it) and charge out at 5% (and pay it to the VAT man)

I dont think my Accountant would let me do anything else.

[ditchcrawler]

Nice one Dave - we have to tackle our lot head on very soon, the meters are going in before the next 2 weeks is up. Everyone is looking at the Kikmeister for answers as he is the Sparky but so far all the work is being done by the owners themselves so cheap and not too cheerful is the order of the day.

Is he qualified to do this work?

[onionbargee]

i'm guessing hacking those card machines or getting cheaper cards would be simple, of course i would never do anything like that !

[kiki]

Is he qualified to do this work?

 

Please dont get me started !!!! The electric is barely passable now. I would not furtle with the machine, as I am more than prepared to pay the going rate for electricity, I am not however prepared to let the landlord make a profit on it. I suspect they wont in the end, but the deduction on our moorings to compensate for now having to buy cards, is very very low - I would have expected it to be more, so now we are left scratching our heads wondering what the rest of our "levy" is paying for. Certainly not maintainance.

 

i'm guessing hacking those card machines or getting cheaper cards would be simple, of course i would never do anything like that !

 

Would not hack it ever...as the Kikmeister will be the first one they will point a finger at - or perhaps DM as he also has experience in fitting these devices - nah keeping well away.

[Naughty Cal]

We pay for our electric by cards at Burton Waters. The standing charge for the bollard and meter is included in our mooring rate so the money we ay to buy the cards is purely for electric. It doesnt work out too badly. This year so far we have bought two £14 cards and still have money left on the meter

[mayalld]

Would not hack it ever...as the Kikmeister will be the first one they will point a finger at - or perhaps DM as he also has experience in fitting these devices - nah keeping well away.

 

Quite so.

 

I love the way they have communicated this change to their moorers!

 

I find out that they are fitting pre-payment meters on here from Kiki, they haven't bothered to say a word about it to me, or about how much I should reduce my SO due to the fact that they are now charging for something that has hitherto been included in the mooring charge.

[kiki]

Quite so.

 

I love the way they have communicated this change to their moorers!

 

I find out that they are fitting pre-payment meters on here from Kiki, they haven't bothered to say a word about it to me, or about how much I should reduce my SO due to the fact that they are now charging for something that has hitherto been included in the mooring charge.

 

Come on Dave....surely you have noticed the handwritten A4 piece of paper stuck in the office window behind the No pumpouts on weekends signs and the We are going to swtich of the water at 6pm sign - really pay attention. We actaully only know because Paul went up to the office to collect the mail. ONe day you will arrive and there will just be an electric meter - no idea how much your mooring will be reduced by, the liveaboards are not happy witht he paltry sum that has been deducted from our moorings, leaving up aparantly paying £45 a month for water !!