UK Rising utility costs electricity and oil.

UK Rising utility costs electricity and oil.

Good morning all.

 

Our electricity is going up by  105% in April and our heating oil has gone up by 82% since Christmas. Not helped by Mr Putin!!.

 

 

I'm going to need to increase my booking price to reflect this,.

 

I'm sure I am not the only one. Is there a standard ish suggestion/plan people are using?

 

Andrew

26 Replies 26
Sophie482
Level 2
London, United Kingdom

My property was booked up for Summer 2022 by the time  fuel prices rocketed. We have oil fired central heating in our village. I wondered if anyone is sending out price increases to guests to reflect fuel cost increases?

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Sophie482 You can't charge a guest more once they have booked as you have, at that point, entered into a contract with them. At least Summer stays won't use too much fuel and should be at higher nightly rates. The issue is for next winter where if hosts don't adjust their pricing they could easily lose money on a stay.

Richard2480
Level 1
Oxford, United Kingdom

I am facing this issue. Bookings for our Airbnb have been in place since last year and I cannot change prices. At the moment by the end of the year I think we will run at a loss. Why are Airbnb management fees not being reduced so that host fees increase? It seems Airbnb are immune to the costs pressures which are being absorbed totally by the hosts. Even a 5% reduction would be welcome.

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Richard2480 I think you exaggerate somewhat. Your nightly price is around £260. Even with heating costs going up the proportion of this attributed to heating must be quite small.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

I am thinking about writing something for guests (I'm not sure where, maybe in house manual) to remind them we are in an energy crisis and why it's really important for them to be conscious of this. I have always had something about this in my house rules (I actually used to work for an environmental organisation focused on energy saving, so this is something that has long been important to me). However, the majority of my guests are young and many of them have never had to pay utility bills so they don't even seem aware of the current crisis. It's just not on their radar.

I have put thermostats on every radiator  plus a master on and include in my introductory chat on arrival and say do turn up if you need to. We are fortunate in having 2 pumps ..master is our side of the house so heating relatively easy to manage.

 

Like you've found, lights not so easy to manage ..my sister in law went to an Airbnb and there were notes in the handbook and in the house asking guests to turn off heating lights etc when not in use .. it worked .. but she did feel a tad miffed at the wording so be careful how you word things.

 

I'm going to just mention it for the moment and see how that goes.. luckily summer iscoming an dI expect neither will be an issue till next Autumn

Helen2685
Level 2
Monymusk, United Kingdom

Thank you for raising this Andrew, we are also on oil, with electricity supplied by Octopus, so the responses have been really useful.  We have a large old granite building to heat, so it's been an expensive few months.  Thank goodness it was a mild winter and spring!  Thanks again, I'm away to create a spreadsheet to work out what proportion of those costs I can claim for tax purposes.

One question though, if our AirBnB is a portion of our main house, but separate, should we also take into account occupancy rates, or, just claim for a proportion of the bills for the entire year?  Any thoughts?

@Helen2685 we heat our apartments to an extent whether or not they are occupied to protect the furnishings. I would do a simple ratio of the number of bedrooms to split out the costs from the house but who knows if the taxman will accept it.

Good point! I think we’ll divide up the heating bills (oil) as you say, we heat it year round.

 

@Helen2685 

 

Our bnb is attached to the house too..but has a separate central heating pump so I can literally switch it of so I can work out how many more litres of oil I use per year  and compare to last 5 yrs without guests  and has been the same.

 

So I hope I can justify the extra costs that are down to the guest side of things  will see what tax people say next yr 

Helen2685
Level 2
Monymusk, United Kingdom

Ah the separate pump is useful.

Do you then divide your electric bills by number of rooms used year round? Or only on days occupied by guests?

Kim2210
Level 1
England, United Kingdom

HI,

I am concerned about the increased fuel costs I will face this winter.

My lettings are both all electric, and as other hosts have mentioned, some guests aren't as thoughtful as others.

I want my daily rate to remain competitive, and was considering installing a smart meter and a "fair usage" policy?

Wondered what the community thought?