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London council ‘working with residents’ after claims it made eviction threats over energy bills
A London council has said it is working on energy payment plans after claims that it hiked bills for heat network users by 350% and threatened those who could not pay with eviction.
Tenants and leaseholders of Lambeth Council alleged that beginning in April 2023, the local authority has sent notices of seeking possession to heat network users when they could not pay £60-70 a week in heating and hot water bills.
In a blog post, the Lambeth Tenants Heat Campaign argued that most UK renters have separate rent and energy bills and can only be evicted for inability to pay rent.
However, they claimed, the council is “erroneously and egregiously counting fuel debt as unpaid rent [and] wilfully setting us on the road to risking our homes”.
Lambeth explained that eviction is only used as a last resort where other interventions and support have proved unsuccessful.
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The tenants campaign said: “We understand the falling price of gas may mean lower bills from this April, but they will still be too high for many of us to keep up with and we will already be in debt, struggling to catch up with our arrears.”
One tenant of Lambeth’s Wedgwood House said their rent was paid by housing benefit, so their arrears were solely on service charges.
They added: “I have received two threatening letters from Lambeth seeking repossession/action to take me to court… No matter what I pay, my arrears still go up.”
A spokesperson for Lambeth Council told Inside Housing that energy prices rose in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but its costs only increased the following year after its long-term contracts ended.
They said “we now expect the charge for communal heating and hot water will fall by £25.11 per week on average in the coming year”, as global inflation eases.
However, they acknowledged that “the rises last year came at a particularly tough time for all our residents, and we didn’t take that lightly. That is why we provided an extra £0.5m in funding for our most vulnerable tenants.
“We understand that clearing arrears immediately or over a short period can be challenging, so we have been working with residents to create extended payment plans, that align with their affordability.”
In 2023-24, Lambeth said, it delivered 30 cost of living projects including targeted support to “low-income tenants impacted by the heating and hot water charges increase who were not receiving other cost of living support from central government.”
On rent and energy bill arrears, the spokesperson said: “We do not separate rent from service charges. Although the heating and hot water charges are a service charge, they are included as part of the weekly rent payable, and both have to be paid in accordance with the terms of the tenancy agreement. We cannot accept non-payment of either amount as if not paid, they will be classed as rent arrears.”
The council said it sends letters and text messages and makes in-person visits to “consistently update residents” on their rent accounts.
They added: “We also have many support and advice partners and our own in-house tenancy support team to help residents where possible through this challenging period.”
Lambeth Council has applied for central government’s energy bills discount scheme for heat network support. The discounts will be applied by the energy supplier on the council’s bills, where they qualify.
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