Sky-high additional charges for block heating: ‘I don’t heat much’ | RTL News

Mats Dijkstra lives on the top floor of the Leuvensehof. A twelve-storey tower block built in 1975. The 195 small rental apartments are poorly insulated. They have energy labels ranging from E to G and are heated via block heating.

The entire apartment building is heated via a gas-fired boiler located at the bottom of the apartment building. The apartments are supplied with heat and hot water via water pipes. There is a small meter on each radiator in the living room, bathroom and bedroom that measures the heat units consumed.

“I don’t burn much”

Mats received an additional tax of more than 3,200 euros. He doesn’t understand how this is possible. “I don’t burn much and never have the radiator knob set higher than position two.” Mats doesn’t trust the meters on his radiator. According to him, the housing association has promised that a metering company will check the meters.

Flatmate Jamey Doorstam also had to pay more than 3,200 euros extra. She doesn’t understand anything. “I work four days a week and the heating is turned off during the day. So I don’t heat much. And paying 3,218.61 euros extra is a lot of money.” Last year, Jamey received 744 euros back. “Nothing has changed in my heating behavior.”

They are not the only ones with problems. TNO investigated how many households live in energy poverty. In 2022, 602,000 households had to deal with high energy costs and 68 percent of these energy-poor households live in a rental home from a corporation and such a house often has a low energy label (F + G).

Allowance for block heating

At the beginning of this year, all residents of the flats in Nijmegen received a letter from housing association Portaal with the message: We will halve your advance payment, because you will receive money back through the Temporary subsidy scheme for Block Heating (TTB). A few months later, an additional tax of thousands of euros follows, while the 1,100 euro subsidy has already been deducted.

Many residents are anxiously awaiting next year. Then they will no longer receive a TTB subsidy from the government and the gas price for 2024 will be 0.85 euro cents per cubic meter of gas. The renovation of the flat is scheduled for 2027, so people are very concerned about unaffordable energy bills in the coming years.

Evicted from home

Concerned apartment resident Rob Careman says: “People have sleepless nights and are afraid that they will be evicted if they cannot pay their energy bill. Poor people live in this apartment, they do not have a few thousand euros lying around.”

The story in Nijmegen does not stand alone. The Housing Association often receives complaints from tenants about high additional taxes on block heating. “One of the causes may be that there is an unequal distribution of costs. Block heating is often found in apartment buildings. People who are very close to the heating system have less heat loss than people on the top floors,” says Woonbond spokesperson Mathijs ten. Broeke.

Go to the Rent Assessment Committee

The Housing Association advises people with a high additional tax to check their bill carefully and if it is incorrect to go to the Rent Assessment Committee. They can decide whether this bill is fair and whether you should pay it or not.

Housing association Portaal said in a written response to RTL News: “Additional costs in the final bill are due to higher consumption than the advance paid. There is no reason to assume that other factors are at play.”

Looking for a solution

The housing association understands that the high final bill is ‘hugely impactful and extremely annoying’. Portaal will individually discuss all residents with a high bill and look for a solution.

“No one has to fear having to leave their home. As a corporation, we always look at appropriate housing costs and whether people have the opportunity to bear their burdens,” a spokesperson said.