Do PAYG have online account options?

There are a total of ZERO suppliers on the market who cater for split-billing in HMOs outside of landlord sub-metering stuff. If there were, pretty much all the Forum Volunteers here would know about it and we’d have pointed you at one.

You can ask all the energy suppliers in the UK and they’ll all tell you what myself and Nukecad are saying - the arrangement you want is not supported.

You MUST handle any bill-splits between yourself and the other tenants. OVO cannot get involved nor assist you with that. Whoever pays the bill to OVO is the one who’ll have to chase the other tenants and get them to cough up their share to that person.

Likewise, if OVO doesn’t get paid, then OVO will EXCLUSIVELY chase after the named account holder only. OVO doesn’t care about whether you have arrangements with anyone else - legally they can’t chase anyone other than the named account holder.

Even with financially liable Secondary Contacts, the account owner remains responsible for absolutely everything on the account - including paying the FULL bill to OVO. You can’t have a bazillion Secondary Contacts either - IIRC the limit is something like one account owner and ONE Secondary Contact.

One Account. One Meter. One Bill. One Human. That’s just how it works.

Ok, I don't disagree with you on that point.

Maybe there is a gap in the market for  an enterprising utility supplier to work out and manage an effective system for sharing the bills for HMO's with only one main meter.

Octopus seem like an enterprising set-up that would be worth checking with.

I'm sure I read something that said those using electricity are the ones liable to pay it. How can a landlord of an HMO be liable if the landlord is not using the supply. If the landlord stop paying the bills in an HMO who does the utility company chase?

Such a setup already exists - it’s called Landlord Sub-Metering and has existed for decades. No energy supplier is likely to ever make that a “product” they offer as it’s too messy. Per the Electricity Act 1989 and Gas Act 1986, the Supplier is NOT responsible for anything beyond the Supply Meter they put in. So you’d literally have to change 40 year old laws if you wanted to start up such an enterprise. Good luck with that.

The closest you can do is a “Reseller” type arrangement which relies on Sub-Metering i.e. multiple Meters that exist downstream of the Main Supply Meter. That space is already pretty crowded…

The other option is that the Landlord does a Building Network Operator setup (DNO’s can advise on this!) so that every tenant gets their own Supply Meter, their own Service Fuse and their own Supply Account with the ability to individually and independently switch suppliers and payment methods in a way that affects just that tenant. It’s expensive to install, but guarantees that everyone gets to use the full 80-100A capacity without the risk of overloading one supply point because each supply point would have its own 80-100A allowance directly from the street.

Ultimately, it’d be basically impossible to make it fair on everyone with just one main meter. That’s just asking for trouble and I can’t see it ever working out. There’s a reason why no-one has developed such a setup for HMOs!

If the Landlord is the named account holder of the upstream supply account and fails to pay his bills, then the energy supplier will chase the Landlord rather than the tenants because he is the one responsible for the supply - but any Disconnection would affect ALL tenants as well.

It is precisely why “All Bills Included” on rent agreements is a terrible arrangement - because ultimately it screws over the Landlord if the tenants gorge on free zappy juice.

In the end it’s the landlord who should be making seperate metering arrangements.

Of course many don’t want the cost of doing that and so either do ‘all inclusive’ which as we have seen can have it’s own problem if prices rocket up, or rely on often unsatisfactory bill sharing arrangements between tenants.

Look on any Landlord/Tenant forum and you will find discussions on utility bills in HMO’s, they have been going round and round covering the same points and options for years.

Landlord sub-metering in HMOs is a thing, and there have been some newer schemes on the market to make it easier for both landlords and tenants.

But they are not the electricity suppliers, they are 3rd party metering systems where the tenant tops up with the metering company who then passes it on to the LL, the LL pays the supplier.
There is still an initial cost, and ongoing cost to the landlord for the sub-metering, the actual meters, admin fees, etc. (which would no doubt be recouped by a higher rent).

Here are just a couple of examples, maybe point your (prospective?) LL to them?
Other companies are available that do similar sub-metering:
https://metroprepaid.co.uk/about/blog/how-does-an-electric-sub-meter-work/
https://landlordmetering.com/

In my opinion it should be made compulsory for HMOs to have seperate meters or sub-meters for each tenant.
But with the current housing shortage the government are wary of legislating something which would undoubtedly make many HMO landlords sell up and leave the market.

I’m fairly sure they don’t.

OVO have a subsidiary that helps those moving in to a new home get all the paperwork sorted out in one fell swoop for free, but I don’t think their service stretches to bill management of the sort you’re looking for. You might ask them: Tili - Your home move assistant

Otherwise, there are several companies that will do the necessary at a price. I’ve seen a few scary anecdotes about companies like this that would make me think twice - and do lots of research - before signing up with any of them. This is what Microsoft’s Copilot found when I asked:
 

I should probably mention however, that using those services - especially the “We’ll manage EVERYTHING for you” type may limit your options severely. Other options are - of course - available and it’s highly recommended you shop around first - splitting things up may get you a better deal!

Wow, some good information coming out here, thanks.

Earlier, I shared the threads with my (potential) landlord. I've rented of him before, he's ok. He says you are a well informed  bunch, but suspects you are a little bias towards the utility companies. (His words)

I've just copied what he replied

"What utility companies know but don't tell anybody is that the landlord is only responsible for paying for electricity if the property is empty. Section 6, clause 3(i) of the 1989 Electricty Act.

Whenever a property is occupied the liability for the electricity always lies with the tenant, or if there are multiple tenants, then any one of the tenants. (Joint and several liability). This applies even if the landlord offers 'bills included in the rent'. A clause in an AST saying the landlord pays can not out-trump the law of the land which says the occupier is liable.

At anytime the landlord can inform the utility company that he is relying on the law which makes the tenants liable. The landlord stops collecting the proportion of the rent that was for gas and electricity, steps back and leaves the utility company to engage directly with the tenants, who are their customers using the supply.

If there is no smart meter (that can remotely be switched to prepayment mode) the utility company has great diffuculty in managing the situation from then on.

The tenants are reluctant to give their names as they know they will be held liable for all the supply so there is nobody to recover the debt from.

A utility company can only chase a debt against a named person, no name, no recovery process can start.

In order to encourage utility companies to implement a fair system for managing utility bills with several tenants in shared properties, landlords of HMO's with a single meter should hold out on getting smart meters installed for as long as possible"

Pick the meat off that as they say.

And pick the meat I shall…

There ARE cases where the Landlord chooses to “own” the supply, making them fully liable for it until such time the tenants are made to take it on. There are in fact high-rises where Landlord Sub-Metering is in full deployment in a way where that law cannot be applied - because it’s physically impossible to do so. I’ll give you one example - Bridgewater House in Worcester (and no, I don’t live there!) is a massive High-Rise that is physically wired up in such a way that there’s one giant Supply Meter for the entire building and a bazillion Sub-Meters for all the apartments. AFAIK none of the Sub-Meters run in any kind of Prepayment Mode - they all run in “Credit Mode”.

The developer of that place has basically screwed themselves over in that regard - if all tenants fail to pay, then the developer may find themselves ending up with a huge bill for the entire building that they can’t collect on - and that particular rule about liability does NOT apply because the developer deliberately wired the place up that way, rather than doing it properly. Let’s just say I have industry contacts who work in that area and know the place a little too well…

Oh, and yeah. Because it’s considered a Non-Domestic Supply into the building, that means Domestic Tariffs are NOT available for anyone in that building. Everyone living there has to deal with paying the hyper-expensive Non-Domestic/Business Tariffs which are something like 500% more expensive and can’t change supplier because they don’t have that option. Fun! To make it worse, Warm Home Discount doesn’t work there either - and nor did the Energy Bill Support Scheme. :)

They could totally fix it of course and do it properly, but that means spending tons of money they won’t ever recover and knocking out loads of electricity supplies to carry out the works. So I doubt they’ll ever bother now.

That trick also doesn’t work at all if Sub-Metering is in use - because the Tenant won’t be hooked up directly to the Supply Meter. It ONLY works where the Tenant can potentially directly engage with the Supplier because the Meter they’re on is directly hooked up to the National Grid with no upstream meter between tenant and street.

Either way, the Supplier will chase the last known contact - whoever that may be. I’ll say this much - OVO is VERY capable of identifying who’s living at a property, Smart Meter or not. I know the methods they use, but will not reveal them for obvious reasons. All I’ll say is that if you link yourself to that address in basically any way, shape or form, OVO’s Collections Team WILL find you sooner or later.

I must at this point give you a fraud warning. It sounds like what you and your landlord doing may potentially amount to fraud, so I’d advise you think VERY carefully about your next steps.

As for not swapping the Meter to a Smart Meter? Easy, the Supplier can arguably just pull the plug on the entire supply eventually because the Meter will become non-compliant meaning it can’t be used and they CAN force an upgrade if the Meter is End of Life. It’ll break eventually so it’s only a matter of time…

And that’s before I mention they can just force-entry with a warrant to either Force-Fit a Smart Meter in Prepayment Mode OR just Disconnect the entire supply anyway. OVO doesn’t need to know who’s there - they can enforce such warrants whether they get your details or not. And since “Persons Unknown” is a thing that the Courts recognise... Checkmate. :)

TBH, there’s also little to no benefit for the Landlord to install Landlord Sub-Metering anyway. Ofgem is explicitly clear that a Landlord CANNOT make any profit whatsoever off of reselling energy to tenants via any means whatsoever. They can charge a bit extra to cover their costs, but there’s a very thin line that’s easy to break. Given there’s no advantages to this route, it’s better to just split things up anyway (if needed) and let the tenants deal with the supplier directly IMHO.

You and your landlord can protest as much as you want - as is your right - but at the end of the day I just don’t see your desires ever being met. There’s a VERY good reason I did my research into the thread below and spoke to multiple DNOs before I answered it!

Oh, and one other thing - and this is the killer blow! If there is no name attached to the supply, then there is no supply. That’s literally the only possible status that allows no-one to be attached to it! And that only happens when it’s still being created - but that state doesn’t last long - or when the supply has been fully and permanently decommissioned. Double Checkmate!

And the absolute Triple Checkmate trick? For the Landlord to successfully shift liability to the Tenant, he’d be expected to provide proof of who’s currently living at the property - IIRC he’s legally required to keep records of this anyway - and present that to the Courts if requested to do so. More importantly, presenting it to OVO is basically how he’d be able to close the Temporary Landlord Account and kick the Tenants into opening their own. OVO won’t necessarily action this on his word alone.

I rest my case.

I haven't read all of Blastoies’ reply - it's christmas and I'm sat in the pub.

All I would say is that the landlords statement is interesting, but would be more interesting if there was a weblink to back that “legal” opinion up.

To me it looks like a mix of legislation and semi-legal opinion taking that legislation out of context.

But as I say - beer on board here.

PS. I hope you are enjoying things too, I know being between properties can be stressful at this time of year.

Enjoying it I am. I've landed with a right load of experts here.

My landlord was down the pub also. He sent this definition for you to chew through over Christmas.

1989 Electricity Act, Schedule 6 Clause 3(1) states: -

"Where an electricity supplier supplies electricity to any premises otherwise than in pursuance of a contract, the supplier shall be deemed to have contracted with the occupier (or the owner if the premises are unoccupied) for the supply of electricity as from the time (“the relevant time”) when he began so to supply electricity."

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to say that the landlord is only liable when the property is unoccupied, so if the landlord backs out of any 'all inclusive' contract, the tenants are left holding the hot potatoe.

Bounce that one round the pub.