Understanding your bills package

Our model is designed to give you the best deal possible. We pass on all our services at cost from the supplier and then charge you a fixed management fee on top of this.

As part of the fully managed service covered by the fee is your one consolidated bill, discounted prices and one place for all your customer support needs.

Our transparent structure means you always know your share of your household bills. This means we provide individual liability so you only ever pay your share of the bills, even if your housemates don’t pay theirs.

As with most things in life, yes you can do it yourself cheaper. You may be lucky and have great housemates, with no issues. Or you may have an awful time with dodgy suppliers, miserable broadband and companies you’ve never heard of chasing you for debt that isn’t yours, and affecting your credit history.

We aim to make the process of renting a property as easy and hassle-free as possible, and we wholeheartedly believe that we offer a good service for the money, having been in your situation a few years ago.

Individual Liability Fee

We take a £120 per person, per year fee to set up and look after your services; consolidate services into one bill; provide one place for support (managed in the portal) and guarantee individual liability. That works out as £10 per person per month on a 12 month contract.

Individual liability means that as long as you are up to date with all your payments, you will never be charged for another housemate’s share of the bills. Therefore, if you have paid your £50 a month, and your housemate fails to pay theirs, we will not pursue you for their share like other companies do.

We set-up all direct debits in our name, and will always pay the bill even if the tenant hasn’t paid us. This means that you as the tenant won’t suffer the impact of a bad credit rating, even in the scenario of late or non-payment. The fee we charge helps us to do this without passing on overcharges to our customers.

A portion of students have money problems and can’t pay their bills. We work with them to sort out payment plans, without affecting their housemates. This takes time and costs money for us as a business, which again the liability fee covers.

Broadband

We have negotiated special contracts with our chosen broadband providers to best suit our customers. This includes 12-month contracts rather than the standard 18 months, as we know it does not tie-in with our customers normal tenancy agreements.

We have also negotiated 30 day rolling contracts, for people on short term contracts. This means that you are not tied into contracts that are longer than you need.

This can save our customers over £200 a year on their broadband depending on the service that they pick.

If you are with Virgin, you will be on a 12-month contract. The rates will depend on the broadband speed that you and your housemates have selected. Here is an indication of current prices:

• For Virgin 350mb – £60 install / £55 per month for 12 months
• For Virgin 500mb – £60 install / £65 per month for 12 months

If you are with GB Tech, you will be on a 12 month contract, or a 30-day rolling contract. The rates will depend on when you signed up and the broadband speed that you and your housemates have selected. Here is an indication of current prices:

• For GB Tech ADSL – £85.00 install / £27.50 per month for 12 months / 30 day rolling (Missed install charge £85.00)
• For GB Tech FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) – £85.00 install / £37.50 per month for 12 months / 30 day rolling (Missed install charge £85.00)

Energy

The Bunch switches you from the start of your tenancy to ensure that you are on our chosen provider from the start. Many people normally just wait for letters to come through in the post and end up massively overpaying out of contract rates. We ensure that you only ever pay the agreed rates as well as assist you with your old supplier bills.

In fact, we spend between two and 40 hours negotiating with the previous energy supplier at a property to make sure the tenants are not being charged for the previous tenants’ utility bills. We’d estimate about 70% of our tenants benefit from this.

The Bunch arranges for a smart meter to be installed into the property, which after being requested usually takes within 7 days. This smart meter links up with your customer portal, so you can easily track your usage every month, always knowing where you stand. Once it’s in, you will never have to send us a meter read again and you’ll always know where you stand with your bills, hassle free.

You may see great energy prices on uswitch, but our experience is that mid-term they will go up (you’ll end up paying more), and one tenant will have to be responsible for paying them every month. To offer low prices, they can’t deal with service, problems or missed/late payments, and any problems escalate very quickly.

Please get in touch with us for specific information on tariffs.

TV Licence

A TV Licence costs £159.00 per year (April 2021), which we pass onto you at cost. Whether you watch TV or stream to a device, you’ll legally need a TV Licence.

Water

The rate of your water will depend on the location of your property, as water is supplied by individual providers across the country who charge different amounts.

Once we have set up your account, we will find out whether your property is on a fixed or metered rate, and the rateable value of the property you are renting, all which has an impact on the cost. We use historic and industry data to estimate your bill before you sign. However if the estimation is different when we receive the bill, we will be in touch to discuss this with you at the time to find the best way to proceed in terms of payment.