Energy bills unfair to all

The chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement that the domestic energy bills are to be looked in to by the Government to make sure they are fair to all.  It cannot come a day too soon….and no doubt it will not be soon at all. The company’s tell us that they are making minuscule profits on our energy bills because they have historically used the cheapest tariffs for their calculations.  They could then say their profits were only 4% on a typical customer.  But if they used the standard variable rate it would be much higher. And all this was […]

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The poor need help to get better deals

I met the personification of the spirit of Money Fight Club when I was a fellow panelist at the Money Advice Service’s Financial Capability Week at the QEII centre this week.  Vanessa Simao is a trainee with the Young Women’s Trust in London and an outreacher in Barking and Dagenham so she knows that to help clients in her work she has to share her own experiences as a single parent. She knows what it is like to take a loan to provide food or heating and then to get behind and agree to consolidate the loans into one payment […]

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New inflation index is hollow victory

Someone in Government has listened to us and finally recognized that buying and owning a house is expensive and getting more so.  The Consumer Prices Index  that has been favoured by the Government to assess the rate of inflation has ignored mortgage payments, council tax, buildings insurance and estate agents costs.  It replaced the Retail Prices Index devised in the First World War, which includes all these costs. This sleight of hand  has meant that the official inflation rate is currently 1% while the traditional RPI which is 2% is ignored by the authorities unless consumers are paying.  It is […]

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Service charges horror for flat owners

Leasehold, a unique form of tenure unique to England and Wales is preoccupying us this week as so many buyers of flats are hit with unexpected bills.  First of all I am helping a group of flat owners who have been hit with a 30% surcharge on their service charges, which seems bad until you hear of a young couple forced out of their home by the cost of their service charge. Yes, the charges must under law be reasonable and management companies must account for their spending but both the cases above demonstrate how hard it is for people […]

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