Advice please on electricty/water usage...

[noodles]

So the landlord has refunded you all of the water & power he has charged you. So essentially you paid nothing for power & water. Do you feel ethical ???

Yes I do actually, sorry if I have something against forgeiners coming to this country setting things up illegally and making money off people like me. I didn't do anything wrong except enter into a tenancy without knowing exactly all the details. We could have easily gone to the TT and let them make the call, infact we already had a date we were supposed to go, but our landlord was doing things so dodgily that it was costing her less money to pay us back what we were owed. Yeah okay we did use power and water, but if she can't accuratley gauge how much she should she be charging us then she shouldn't be charing us. We were only there for a few months, and there lots of problems with how she was doing things so don't judge how ethical I am, at least I wasn't doing anything illegal to make money.

[Wayne]

I have something against anyone setting things up illegally - not just foreigners

[mrsaneperson]

Yes I do actually, sorry if I have something against forgeiners coming to this country setting things up illegally and making money off people like me. I didn't do anything wrong except enter into a tenancy without knowing exactly all the details. We could have easily gone to the TT and let them make the call, infact we already had a date we were supposed to go, but our landlord was doing things so dodgily that it was costing her less money to pay us back what we were owed. Yeah okay we did use power and water, but if she can't accuratley gauge how much she should she be charging us then she shouldn't be charing us. We were only there for a few months, and there lots of problems with how she was doing things so don't judge how ethical I am, at least I wasn't doing anything illegal to make money.

First off your opening line is racist .You have taken advantage of the situation . When you entered into the agreement you understood that you would be paying power & water costs. Your landlord showed you his calculations based on your power & water usage. If you had a problem understanding how these were calculated you should have gone over it with him. Instead you decided to unscrupulously "hold him to ransom" because of the nature of the dwelling. Effectively you paid no water or power costs & no doubt caused your landlord a lot of stress; so much so that he refunded everything. That is wrong .

[DazRaz]

Really? Noodles tried to pay the fair amount and that could not be calculated. They agreed to settle without the tribunal. Nothing wrong with a out of court settlement.

[noodles]

First off your opening line is racist .You have taken advantage of the situation . When you entered into the agreement you understood that you would be paying power & water costs. Your landlord showed you his calculations based on your power & water usage. If you had a problem understanding how these were calculated you should have gone over it with him. Instead you decided to unscrupulously "hold him to ransom" because of the nature of the dwelling. Effectively you paid no water or power costs & no doubt caused your landlord a lot of stress; so much so that he refunded everything. That is wrong .

Okay first off I wasnt being racist it is exactly what happened. And you don't feel that I and all the other tenants that have been through there have been taken advantage of? By setting things up illegally we were paying for things that could not accuratley be gauged. Its not that we didn't understand how things were calculated in the end, its that there was only one hot water cylinder, which was connected only to one circuit and there were two circuits for two properties, so only one of us was paying for the water to be heated and it made no difference there were double the amount of people in the next door property having double the amount of hot showers, double the amount of washing ect and we brought our own drinking water, shared showers and only did 2 loads of washing a week, and we were paying an equal half with them, does that seem fair, right or ethical to you? Not to mention none of this information was offered to us before moving in, we were simply told the power and water bills would be sent to us via the LL. If you had read previous posts on this thread you might have a clearer picutre as I've said this before. We didn't hold anyone to "ransom" TT is a place this could have been solved not our problem the LL didn't want to go there for obvious reasons.

[mrsaneperson]

Okay first off I wasnt being racist it is exactly what happened. And you don't feel that I and all the other tenants that have been through there have been taken advantage of? By setting things up illegally we were paying for things that could not accuratley be gauged. Its not that we didn't understand how things were calculated in the end, its that there was only one hot water cylinder, which was connected only to one circuit and there were two circuits for two properties, so only one of us was paying for the water to be heated and it made no difference there were double the amount of people in the next door property having double the amount of hot showers, double the amount of washing ect and we brought our own drinking water, shared showers and only did 2 loads of washing a week, and we were paying an equal half with them, does that seem fair, right or ethical to you? Not to mention none of this information was offered to us before moving in, we were simply told the power and water bills would be sent to us via the LL. If you had read previous posts on this thread you might have a clearer picutre as I've said this before. We didn't hold anyone to "ransom" TT is a place this could have been solved not our problem the LL didn't want to go there for obvious reasons.

It depends on how the check meter was wired.Perhaps the check meter power usage rate did not include the power used by the HWC. Did you care to enquire ?Perhaps the landlord did a partial credit in his calcs regarding the usage factor of the HWC by the other occupants.Were you interested to find out ?
Even so , the fact of the matter is you have gotten away scot free of paying any amount towards power & water. That is very unfair.You sent the landlord notification to refund you all power & water costs you had paid to him. Perhaps it was your legal right to do this, but it is not ethically right. What you could have done is agree to pay a "token " amount based on what you deemed to be fair average usage based on the number of people in your family. Mercury Energy & the local council would be able to give you an indication of this average costing based on the number of people in your family. Instead you took advantage of the situation, knowing of the landlords dillemma with regard to dwelling usage & decided to pay nothing.An unconscionable path for you made easier by an ill founded legality.You may feel some kind of "easy road to victory" but truth is the monetary gain is illgotten.

[mrsaneperson]

Really? Noodles tried to pay the fair amount and that could not be calculated. They agreed to settle without the tribunal. Nothing wrong with a out of court settlement.

A fair amount could not be calculated.Really? So therefore i will pay nothing. Morally bankrupt .

[noodles]

It depends on how the check meter was wired.Perhaps the check meter power usage rate did not include the power used by the HWC. Did you care to enquire ?Perhaps the landlord did a partial credit in his calcs regarding the usage factor of the HWC by the other occupants.Were you interested to find out ?
Even so , the fact of the matter is you have gotten away scot free of paying any amount towards power & water. That is very unfair.You sent the landlord notification to refund you all power & water costs you had paid to him. Perhaps it was your legal right to do this, but it is not ethically right. What you could have done is agree to pay a "token " amount based on what you deemed to be fair average usage based on the number of people in your family. Mercury Energy & the local council would be able to give you an indication of this average costing based on the number of people in your family. Instead you took advantage of the situation, knowing of the landlords dillemma with regard to dwelling usage & decided to pay nothing.An unconscionable path for you made easier by an ill founded legality.You may feel some kind of "easy road to victory" but truth is the monetary gain is illgotten.

Well they could have actually have mentioned the way this was setup from the beginning and have an agreed amount for power and water that would have been paid insted they basically aquired young tenants (not only us) that didn't ask very many questions and take advantage of them not knowing this is actually setup very wrongly. We weren't about to offer them any money after all of the problems, I guess you also think nothing of them holding onto our bond. I think them doing things illegally and making money off people who don't know better is a bigger deal than me and my partner not paying for our usage for 3 months. Especially to people so dodgy as them, if you ask me they got off lightly I would have liked to have gone to TT and seen them have to do work to make it legal. But I was happy just getting out of the situation. People like them should not be landlords. Why it a dillemma for them? They are the ones knowingly ripping off the system and making alot of money out of a place setup so wrongly and illegally. They are not victims they are greedy landlords and standing up for them when you don't actally know the full story says alot about you too.

[noodles]

A fair amount could not be calculated.Really? So therefore i will pay nothing. Morally bankrupt .

Morally bankrupt is greedy landlords not doing things by the rules to make more money off people who don't know better. Were talking about $150 worth of usage vs. thousands of $$ it would have cost them to make it legally 2 units. Should have just stuck it out and gone to TT.

[Perry]

OK, guys. Differing points of view. Agree to
disagree and call it quits at that, please.

[Wayne]

Noodles - you have jumped into the mind of the LL and decided that they did this from a perspective of greed. That they were trying to take advantage of you (and others like you). You have a bit of a chip on your shoulder.
- It could also be that the LL thought this was the bes way to go.
- It could be that they thought the system was fair and distributed the costs (and the power and water is a cost) reasonably between the parties. I gather the LL doesn't live next door so the LL is distributing costs not 'making money'.
- It could be that the LL is new to this country and what they are doing is normal where they come from. I know ignorance of the law is not a defense but it also doesn't make them grredy morally bankrupt people.
- It could be that you scared the hell out of them an they paid up to get you to shut up and will sort things out now. One would hope that everyone learnt something from this and will move on.

I make no judgement on anyones morals in this post - people do what they do for their reasons and who am I to second guess those reasons.

[TheLiberalLeft]

Ignorance is absolutely a defence. Did you not hear Sir Doug Graham's lawyer the other day on RadioLive saying that poor Sir Doug, while technically guilty, was only REALLY guilty of an omission. It's not what he did, it's what he didn't do or failed to do or forgot to do or wasn't aware he needed to do.

[Wayne]

Didn't work for Doug though - found him guilty and slapped his wrist with a wet bus ticket!

[TheLiberalLeft]

That's Sir Doug to you.

[Wayne]

That's Sir Doug to you.

for now ..