Welcome to Old School Lofts
Here you will find the information that relates to your development and its utility arrangements.
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Who is my Supplier?
Ocasa Residential LimitedOcasa Residential Limited supplies all the utilities to residents. This includes a thermal energy that heats your home and provides hot water. For this service, the industry refers to them as your "Heat Supplier". They also supply your homes electricity and cold water through a private network and for these services, the industry refers to them as a Reseller.
What Utility is supplied by Ocasa Residential Limited?
- Heat and Hot Water (Heat Network)
- Electricity
- Cold Water
- There isn’t a gas supply into your home.
What is a Heat Network?
The Old School Lofts development has a communal heat supply.
- The technology that provides space heating and hot water into your home is referred to as a heat network or a communal heat supply. It is part of the UK’s decentralised energy infrastructure.
- Communal heating or a heat network, is a centralised energy source, located in the plant room of the building, which delivers heat and hot water to the residents’ homes through a series of insulated pipes.
- The network is currently fed by gas. The gas is converted into heat and hot water, known as thermal energy or heat energy, which is then delivered into your home.
- Due to the age of your system there is no measuring devices on the network. As such, your tariff for the heat network is based on the operating costs divided by square footage.
- The development has been equipped with a heat network rather than independent gas boilers, to comply with The Climate Change Act and the Governments strategy on building sustainable homes. The idea is that by having a heat network, the carbon footprint of the building will be monitored, and in the future, the building can also be easily transferred away from using gas, and onto a renewable source, without accessing your home.
- It’s important to understand that you do not have a gas supply, you are not charged for gas. Ocasa Residential Limited receive gas which is converted into heat, and residents homes are supplied by thermal energy.
- The water and the electricity is also delivered through a communal supply, you can read more about private wire networks below…..
What is a Private Wire Network?
The Old School Lofts development has two private networks. One for electricity and one for water.
- Commercial buildings that were converted to residential homes are done so under permitted development regulations and have greater flexibility through a simplified planning process.
- Rather than the expense of installing an independent on-grid supplies into each apartment, it often more commercial to keep the buildings existing utility infrastructure in place, and instead install a private sub metering system to measure individual apartments utility consumption.
- The original single, on-grid, electricity and water bulk supply points remain in place and provides electricity and water to the entirety of building.
- The electricity and water suppliers invoice Ocasa Residential for the consumption drawn from these supply points.
- Ocasa Residential then passes on charges to each of the residents for their share of this supply. The charges to residents are based on their own sub meter reads, accessed through the private sub metering system.
- This is known as a private wire supply. The process of onward charging utilities through a private wire network is referred to as Reselling.
Who are Ginger Energy?
- Ocasa Residential Limited has appointed Ginger Energy as their Billing Agent. Ginger Energy are responsible for producing utility invoices, and providing the associated customer support to residents.
- You can contact Ginger on billingteam@gingerenergy.co.uk or by calling the offices:
Opening Hours 9am-5pm Mon- Fri
Disruption of Supply
- Is the problem throughout the building or is it isolated to your home only?
- Contact Ocasa on 020 3846 2874, let them know, and they will report the problem to a suitable engineer
- Disconnections due to arrears? Disconnections will be subject to a number of advance written warnings being issued. If you have been disconnected due to non payment, please contact collections@utilidebt.com or call 0345 307 3432.
How do I pay my Bills?
2.
Please pay by bank transfer to Barclays Ginger Energy or set up a Direct Debit by logging into the portal.
- Account name: Ginger Energy Limited
- Barclays Account number: 40379174
- Sort code: 20-55-59
- IBAN: GB39 BUKB 2055 5940 3791 74
- BIC: BUKBGB22
- When paying always quote your unique reference number which appears on the top right of your invoice. Invoices are due 14 days after tax point.
- Card payments are currently not accepted due to the associated charges which cannot be passed on to the bill payer under UK law but you can pay by BACS or set up a Direct Debit by logging into your account through the portal
- Funds received from residents will be transferred to OCASA.
Heat Network Tariff Information
- Invoices are produced and are separated into two elements: Consumption and daily standing charges.
- The consumption measured by your HIU is multiplied by the pence per unit charged by the Heat Supplier for the period to cover the cost. These costs include components such as raw commodity (gas) and transmission charges.
- Daily Standing Charges are charged and include non-consumption costs such as fees to 3rd parties and costs incurred in ensuring the availability of the heat network. Standing charges also cover policy costs incurred by the main gas supplier in support of government schemes, including the assistance of vulnerable households with energy bills and the support of renewable energy technology and industry reduction of carbon emission.
- Standing charges are applied even if the property is empty and non-consuming.
- Every year, charges are reviewed and reconciled and broken down into their component parts to ensure accurate billing.
- Invoices show the unit rate and the standing charge rate. They also include a 12 month comparison so you can monitor consumption
Contractual Obligations and Relationships of Parties
- The Freeholder also known as Ocasa Residential Limited is the Supplier.
- Under the terms of the tenancy agreement, they provide utilities to tenants. Utilities include heat and got water ( sometimes called thermal or heat energy ), electricity and cold water.
- The Freeholder is liable to the utility companies for utility charges for the building.
- The tenants are liable to the Freeholder for the utilities consumed inside the apartment.
- Ocasa Residential Limited in its capacity of Freeholder has appointed Ginger Energy to act on its behalf, and has instructed Ginger to produce regular billing to the tenants to recover the costs of the heat network and private wire networks.
Electricity Tariff Information
- Invoices are produced in line with OFGEM’S rules on reselling gas and electricity.
- The Maximum Retail Price (MRP) rules mean that Ocasa Residential Limited cannot pass on more than charged by the utility supplier to them.
- So profit or fees have been added.
- Note: The tariff is displayed differently on residents invoicing due to the mis-match in metering set up. The private sub metering system records total consumption, whereas the bulk supply meter records at two rates (day and night). As such residents invoicing has a smeared unit rate of which is found on each invoice rather than a day and night tariff.
Water Tariff Information
- Invoices are produced in line with OFWAT’s rules on reselling.
- The Maximum Retail Price (MRP) rules mean that Ocasa Residential Limited cannot pass on more than charged by the utility supplier.
- No profit or fees have been added.
- The current contract is with Business Stream.
The charges are as follow:
- Water: Please refer to your invoice for the tariff cost
- Waste – Water: Please refer to your invoice for the tariff cost
Standing Charge and surface water are charged per day.
Debt Collection Agent
- Utilidebt are the appointed debt recovery company for this site. Your account will be referred to Utilidebt, if it becomes in arrears.
- A letter will be issued from Ginger Energy, warning that case is being passed to Utilidebt for recovery action.
- More information on Utilidebt can be found on their website www.utilidebt.com.
Vulnerable Persons
A vulnerable person might be considered as someone, in the case of an adult, who is over 18 years of age and is unable to protect themselves from abuse, harm or exploitation. There may be several reasons for this, such as illness, age, mental illness, disability or other types of mental or physical impairment. A detailed definition of a vulnerable adult can be found in Section 2 of The Police Act 1997 (Enhanced Criminal Record Certificates) (Protection of Vulnerable Adults) Regulations 2002. Residents who are vulnerable for the following reasons should ensure that Ginger are made aware of their circumstances:
- have reached your state pension age
- are disabled or have a long-term medical condition
- are recovering from an injury
- have a hearing or sight condition
- have a mental health condition
- are pregnant or have young children
- have extra communication needs (such as if you don’t speak or read English well)
- need to use medical equipment that requires a power supply
Ginger will keep a register of your details and help where possible by giving extra support. Such as:
- Wherever possible, advanced notice of scheduled outages. If you rely on your energy supply for medical reasons your network operator can tell you about planned outages. For example, when they plan engineering work.
- Nominee scheme. You can nominate someone to receive communications and bills from your supplier. For example, a family member, carer or someone you trust.
You should contact Ginger and us know as much as possible about your situation so the team can help you and add you onto our Priority Services Register.