The Village Halls Podcast
A podcast for anyone involved in the running of Britain's 10,000 village, church and community and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide.
The Village Halls Podcast
How a Small Village Hall Took on a Giant Energy Company—and Won
We trace how our village hall uncovered mislabelled “refunds,” challenged erratic post-fire electricity bills, and unlocked an £8,600 correction by fixing VAT status and metering. Calm persistence, clear records, and a smart meter turned chaos into £14 monthly bills and new capital repairs.
• the hall’s role as a community hub and user groups
• solar installation, electrical fire, and meter replacement timeline
• erratic billing pattern identified via printed statements
• misposted credits acting as charges
• supplier refusal to investigate due to “no debt”
• ombudsman requiring a deadlock letter
• VAT rate review from 20% to 5% and resulting refund
• smart meter install and final reconciliation
• practical steps to challenge bills with data
• reinvesting the refund into annex and shed repairs
Hello. My name is Mark Smith. And welcome to the Village Halls Podcast. Sponsored by Allied World Cross. The YouTube largest specialist provider of Village Hall and Tools and the home of Village Guard. Welcome to uh podcast. And this one's a really interesting story. And it's worthwhile to have a podcast because it goes to show that uh no matter how small your village hall is, or some of the small it is you should always fight back against these companies that are trying to charge you. For a few things in this case it was uh electronic. So hopefully you enjoy the podcast. So welcome to the podcast on the podcast I've been looking forward to for a while because uh I think I mentioned on a phone call that I do a lot of governance and legislation podcasts. But this is a nice feel-good uh albeit frustrating story in the beginning. It's a nice feel-good story uh to to talk about. So I think we can start if you can tell us a little bit about the Potterheim Village Hall and the role it plays within your community, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Well, Potterheim Village Hall um was built quite some time ago on land that was um purchased for a very small uh amount from um a doctor uh of Bethel Hospital. So it's got a lovely history. Um, but it was the covenant says that it must be used for the community. And the village hall, um, which was extended in 76, stands to serve our community and provides all kinds of different programs from brownies and girl guides to dog training to table tennis to soup and chatter, which is uh you know part of the winter warming program, so very diverse array of programs, um, but it is very much the community hub for Potterheim, and it brings in a lot of people from other communities as well.
SPEAKER_04:So I suppose how did this uh story all start? What was it? What was the catalyst that started this uh the problem with your electrical bills?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it all started in February, well, July actually of 2022, because in 2021 we um installed solar panels that you would expect would significantly decrease your electric bills, right? Yep, and we knew that our electric bills were on average about 1800 pounds a year. So um we had the solar panels installed, and indeed our electric bills went down, but in February of 2022 we had an electrical fire, and that completely destroyed the the meter and the box and all the stuff in that uh where the main power comes into the village hall. It wasn't until July we got a new meter put in, and that's when the fun and games started. Um, our bills were erratic to say the least. Um, they definitely did not reflect what we thought they should reflect. Uh, we checked the solar panels. Now, admittedly, we did go for a few months where for some reason the backup batteries weren't charging, and that was a glitch, but we fixed that. But still the electrical bills were off the charts, and in fact, in 2020, in 25 now, 2024, our annual bill, and bear in mind our year goes from April 1st to March 30th. So the 2324 bill was over seven and a half thousand pounds.
SPEAKER_04:So fairly significant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we'd had a bill for£4,000, we'd had a refund of£3,000, then we got another big bill, and we kept getting all of these chargebacks, and it was just a mess. And that's where it all started.
SPEAKER_04:So what's the I suppose if you get hit with a bill, what's the first step that you did to uh to think, oh this this can't be right. This surely can't be right, especially with solar panels.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so uh well the first step we did was check the solar panels, um, and as I say, we did find a little glitch there, but that hadn't affected us very much. Then um Stan Chapman, who is the treasurer, he got on the phone to Eon, I don't know how many times, to challenge bills, and he'd never get a straight answer, and you always get bounced around from this person to that person to this person. Yeah, and then eventually, um I'm not a hundred percent sure what the actual catalyst was, I think it was another big bill that just made no sense. Um, and so this would have been about oh, probably about last August of last year. Stan called me and he said, I've got this recent bill. He said, It just makes no sense to me at all. He said, Can you come and have a look and see if you can make heads and tails of any of this? He said, Because I've gone through, and according to my reckoning, and based on history, we've overpaid by about four and a half thousand pounds. He said, Can you come and see if you can figure this lot out? So I said, Well, I can't imagine that I'm any smarter than you stand, but I'll give it a crack. So off I went, and I was looking at this. He'd printed it all out off their website, pages of it. And you would get a bill, then you'd get a credit, but then you'd get um um a refund, and what I realized was when they issued a refund, they call it a chargeback or something.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't a refund, they charged us again. I was like, hang on a minute, there is something very wrong with their accounting system, but there was so much of it we couldn't make head nor tail of it. Well, then I found a point, I think back in February of last year, where it actually zeroed out.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I said, right, let's go from here and see if we can, we've got a zero balance here. So let's see if from this we can figure it out. And sure enough, um what you could see was happening was they'd charge us, we'd pay the bill, they'd give us an arbitrary refund, which was classified as a refund, but it wasn't a refund, it was another charge. So like there is something very wrong with their accounting system. So, of course, we get on the phone, we get bounced around. So eventually, I um this young lady said, Um, send us an email and we'll set up a formal complaints meeting. Yeah, so that's what we did, and every time we made her Stan and I were both on these calls. So we talked to this young lady and we went through everything, and uh, we said, we've got it all printed out from your website, and she said, Well, I'm not seeing any of that. So, well, it all came from your website. Oh, oh, well, um, I'm not sure what we can do about this, and uh, we said, Well, we need to get it investigated, and she said, Well, let me hold on, I'll let me go and talk to somebody. So she comes back and she says, We can't open an investigation because you're not in debt. We said, What? What do you what what what is that supposed to mean? She said, Well, you're not in debt to us, you've paid your bills, so we can't open an investigation. And we said, Yeah, but you're in debt to us, according to our records, according to our calculations, you owe us. And she said, Oh no, no, that that won't prompt uh an investigation. She said, I'm gonna go and have to talk to somebody else. Um, we'll we'll set up another call. So we did that. A few days later, we have yet another call. Still got the same kind of goggly goop, um, but bless her, you could tell she was way out of her depth. I mean, I felt sorry for her actually. Um, and she said, Well, well, what we can do is um we can give you£150 credit on your account.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, very kind.
SPEAKER_00:And Stan and I looked at each other and we're like, Yeah, right. No, not happening. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not happening. And she said, Well, I don't know what else to say. There's nothing else uh we can do because I'm not seeing it, and because you're not in debt, we can't open an investigation. She said, I think what we need to do is close this, and um, we'll send you a letter of um non-reconciliation or whatever the official title for it is, and then you can write to the ombudsman. So we said, fine, okay, we'll write to the ombudsman. And she said, I'll send you that letter this afternoon. And uh we said, will you send it by email, please, to both Stan and to me? Yeah, and she said, Yes, I'll have that out to you this afternoon. Fine, no such letter arrived. I think a week went by, no such letter arrived. So back onto the email I get, and I said, We're waiting for this letter. Um, or we need to have another conversation. Well, we just went ahead and wrote the letter and sent it to the ombudsman.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And to our surprise, we got a very nice letter back from the ombudsman saying, We can't help you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_00:Well, like, what is the point of the ombudsman then? They said, We can't help you. You need to take this up with your provider and reconcile it with your provider. We said, Well, we can't.
SPEAKER_04:That's the very point of existence, isn't it? Really?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So and bear in mind, you know, this is going over weeks. Um, so back on the the phone we get, and we said we need another conversation. And the thing is, every time I send an email, you seem to get somebody different responding to it. You never got the same person because Amber only worked Tuesdays and Thursdays, Tuesdays through Thursdays, or Greg was on holiday, or whatever. Um, so we we eventually get on another call with, I believe it was Amber again. And uh we said, look, I had a letter from the Ombudsman saying we they can't help us. Um we've got to get this resolved. And she said, Well, um, I'm afraid this is out of my league. Um, I'm gonna have to go and talk to somebody, we'll we'll be in touch. Yeah, that was that phone call. So then, about a week before I was due to go on holiday to the Isle of Wight, I get a letter, an email from somebody saying, uh, please complete the attached VAT form. All right. Um, so that we can continue with your uh claim. Well, VAT form? What? So I wrote back and I said, This has got nothing to do with VAT, this has got to do with overpayment based on all of these ridiculous credits and debits. So um anyway, I get another email back saying, we cannot proceed if you don't fill out this form. So I opened up the form and I looked it and I thought, oh, this is a piece of cake, and it wasn't a big deal, it took me five minutes. Yeah, had to get Stan to sign it because he's the official treasurer, signed it, sent it in, sent it in on the Wednesday, um, and what it basically was was a VAT form to apply for a lower VAT rate. We were paying 20%, right? Okay, because we'd been led to believe that we weren't eligible for the 5%, so we'd been paying 20%, and somewhere on that form it said, How long have you been paying this rate? But it could only go back four years. So I put September the 24th, 2020, and uh submitted this on the Wednesday. Thursday, I drove down to Bex Hill, my cousins, Friday. We drove to the Isle of Wight, just settled down in our cottage, an email comes through. Uh, we received your um information. Uh we are refunding£8,600 to your account. I mean, we're on a podcast, but I said to my cousin, I said, holy moly! I said, What the heck? I said, I've got to call Stan. So I got on the phone to Stan and I said, Stan, are you sitting down? And he said, Yeah, why? And I said, You know that VAT form? Yeah. I said I read out the email to him. He said, What? So to this day, we're not a hundred percent sure how they calculated it all, but they put the refund under the guise of a VAT refund.
SPEAKER_04:Ah, right, right. But that's that's I mean, it's odd. It's like they're kind of so they're kind of using the VAT thing as a little bit of an excuse for for the refund or for or for the information mistake, really.
SPEAKER_00:I think it was a combination.
SPEAKER_04:Right, right. Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:I think it was a combination.
SPEAKER_04:Blame somebody else.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I uh yeah. Um since then, they have put a new meter in. We agreed to go with a smart meter, um, because they said we'll give you£150 credit if you'll go for a smart meter. And we said, Can you guarantee that with a smart meter we're not gonna have all of these problems? Because that was the other issue Stan was having. He would go in every month and read the meter and send the readings in, and they kept saying those readings aren't valid. Yeah, and he'd take photographs of them and say, This is the reading. What do you mean they're not valid? It's what your meter is telling me, yeah, yeah. So um yeah, just just ridiculous stuff, but anyway, um, we got the smart meter put in, and they promised us this would resolve all issues, there'd be no further problems, and it had probably been in a what was it, January, February of this year. We got another big bill for about I think it's about a thousand pounds, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and Stan got on the phone and challenged it, and he said, Are we going down this road again? Yeah, and they said no, it was because of the the problems with the old meter. This has just balanced everything out. Um, and I must admit, when we we went back and did the numbers, it did it did balance out, and we said, Fair enough, okay. And since then, touch wood, our bills have been on average£14 each time.
SPEAKER_04:£14, that's very good. That's very very, very good.
SPEAKER_00:So our solar panels are definitely doing their job.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think I assume you've had a good summer then if you if it's£14 for a month.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, so um, but I think the point of all of this is um as Stan and I said, they've taken on the wrong two people here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I used to run a major not-for-profit in the United States with a budget of six million dollars, and Stan was um chief magistrate.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right.
SPEAKER_00:So the two of us between us have a few brain cells to put together. Um, but to be honest, this wasn't rocket science. This really wasn't rocket science. All you needed was a calculator and no even that, you just needed to know how to add and subtract, yeah. And just go through and work it all out, which is what we did.
SPEAKER_04:It's amazing that Eon didn't have that uh function to add and subtract and calculate numbers to work out what you actually owed.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it would seem that way. Um it we just could not make head nor tail of how their accounting system was functioning.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I just don't get it. So um, but the tragedy is I participated on a call, um, I it was uh it was a call that uh Community Action Network put together to talk about energy saving opportunities for village halls. And this whole issue of ridiculous bills from energy companies came up. And there was probably about six of us on the call, and I would say at least three of them said when they got to the end of their contract, because of issues they were having, they were just gonna change companies. Yeah, that doesn't fix the problem, and those village halls are out of money. Yeah, it's you know, our point is no, you're not gonna get away with this. We're gonna get an answer to this and we're gonna get it resolved.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that is it. I think really important to note there is that it doesn't matter how big the company is, that if you feel that your energy bills or any any bill is wrong, is to challenge it. And especially yours, your one in particular, your store in particular, it was it was such a huge number, it's not just like£10 a month, it's a massive sum. And the way they were doing the back and forth of you know, like a like a chargeback type of thing was a charge. Like you you cannot let these things slip. Because how long has it been going on for? Is it been you know before 2020?
SPEAKER_00:Don't know. As I say, we were oh I think before the fire, it was we'd get a bill, we'd pay it, and you'd see zero bill, pay it, zero.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But that wasn't happening, that was the problem, it wasn't happening.
SPEAKER_04:But so um I think it's that's far too logical.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Far too logical. But as I say, I think the the thing is you you've got to um take them on, you know, in a in a professional way, but you've got to get, I mean, Stan took the time to print everything out off their website, so they couldn't say we'd made the numbers up because we printed it off their website.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then we just sat and went through, and it took a long time, it did take quite a bit of time to go through and just work out exactly what we thought they owed us, which, as I say, was about£4,250, which when we looked at what we believed our average billing should be, and taking into account the fact we went through a period of time where electric bills were through the roof, yeah, um, electricity went sky high, didn't it, for a period? We took all that into consideration, and we said we still feel that they owe us in the region of four four thousand pounds.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. And what I think what was interesting as well about our initial call was when you said that the VAT, you know, going from 20% to 5%. And I I know all of our listeners were like, How did you do that? And why were you on the wrong VAT rate in the first place?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's a good question. We had been told that we weren't eligible. Um, do you know I was never given that answer originally, but when I looked into it, um, it was on that call, it was on that same call. Um, we were told that we weren't eligible. Um for some reason. Anyway, when I went onto the government website, because this whole issue came up again when um, and this is why I'm I really very pleased with Allied Westminster. Um they prompted us that a nice plug, yeah, but they they reminded us that our building had not been valued for three years for in the event of it having um to be destroyed and rebuilt. Yeah, you know, if we had another fire or who knows, um, and that uh they wanted to make sure that we were paying the correct premium. Well, when I filled out the paperwork for that, it said, Are you VAT exempt? And I thought, oh, well, no, I don't believe we are because whenever we purchase anything, like if we purchase um new equipment for the play area, yeah, we have to pay full that on it. So um I went online to the government website, and it said village halls are typically at the 5% rate unless you have one of the following criteria, one of which was a playing field. Well, we're called the village Potterheim Village Hall and Playing Field. I thought, well, how does that work? Why what what difference does that make? So got onto the phone with um to the VAT office, and although they were reluctant to give me a yes-no answer, they directed me to section 407, blah blah blah, and the government documents, and they said that will explain it all to you, and you should find that you are VAT exempt. So I read through it as much as I could, and I thought there's no clear yes or no here, but I'm gonna say, yeah, we're VAT exempt.
SPEAKER_04:So excellent. So I suppose that that is a silver lining, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's a silver lining to all of this, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So now we are if the that has reduced our insurance premium quite significantly, because the rebuild would be VAT exempt. Um and um we're now paying only 5% on our electric, which has made a big difference. So, yes, there is a very good silver lining to this whole thing because it's made me very conscious, or us, should I say, very conscious of the whole VAT situation. And you you've got to look into it and you've got to you know make sure that you're getting what you can.
SPEAKER_04:Definitely.
SPEAKER_00:Because we're all small organizations, we all do fundraising, so yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But on the plus side, if everyone listens to this, it's like, right, we better question you shouldn't always question stuff unless it's unless it's very obviously true. You should always question uh bills, because I I think I don't on a rational phone call. I I believe in digital, I it shouldn't be wrong, but it it goes to show that it it can be very, very wrong. If you you know one wrong bit of code and it can be very, very wrong. And other people, especially village halls that do so much with so little, it m it matters. It matters. Even if it was only£100 a year extra, it that money matters.
SPEAKER_00:It does. You're absolutely right, because a lot of people put in a lot of effort to raise funds to keep our hall looking nice and running well.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, the more we're doing, the more we're able to do. And the the terrific thing about getting that refund is we were able to do some capital projects that we'd had to put off. Um, one of which was fixing the roof on the annex.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:We call it the annex. We've got the main hall, and then there's a another room running off it, and we call it the annex, and the roof needed fixing because we had a couple of leaks.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And we had this wonderful shed that um very solid framework structure, but the roof was shot, and it was at the point where one of these days I thought if I walk in, that roof's gonna fall in on me because it was that bad.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, right, right.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but because we got that refund, we were able this spring to get the shed fixed and to get the roof fixed, and that in itself has just leveraged so much because now we've got more storage space, we can we've got room for a marquee that we bought that now we can use for events, people have donated marquees or gazebos because now we've got somewhere to put them. Um it's just made a huge difference, just being able to do some of the things we need needed to get back.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely, yeah. Well, I've got one one final question. Did you ever go because I would do this, did you ever go back to the ombudsman and say, look, this like this is what you should have done in the first place, but you didn't. And this is like we were we were telling the truth. This was wrong. Why did you not fix or help us fix this?
SPEAKER_00:I must admit I didn't, but I think the reason is because Eon didn't submit that official letter of inability to come to a resolution.
SPEAKER_04:Right, like a steel meat type of um declaration.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, basically the company has to acknowledge that that you and they cannot come to a resolution to fix the problem. But that again shouldn't be the case. You should not have to wait for the company to agree that the matter can't be resolved. Because if they don't issue that letter, you can't get the ombudsman to help you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, extremely I definitely would if if we took a lesson from what you've done, that that you know it could help other people as well. Because that that's that kind of declaration of steel meat, it only happens if the company meant, yeah, we can't deal with this, but they were refusing because they were saying what you were in debt, or we would induct you rather than you do, which is ridiculous. Of course, imagine the company's like if we owe you money, it doesn't work like that. It's only if you want money we can deal with it. Ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00:What oh yeah, Sam and I looked at each other at that one and said, What? Did we just lower?
SPEAKER_04:Well also well thank you very very much for joining me on the call, Sheridan. It's been i I'm I'm so glad you came on because I think it's uh a vital story that everyone needs to hear. Uh it doesn't report well for Eon, but I think for other village halls in the country, if even when you're just in your house, if you think you're being billed wrong, please, please fight fight it. It will take time as it did with yourselves. But it's uh if as long as you do it professionally, and don't don't try not to get angry, you can you can deal with these issues amicably.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, do it professionally, with respect, and have the data. Oh, yeah, that's that's that's the key thing, and that's that's what we had. We had the data in front of us, it was not guesswork, it was not um assumption. We had black and white data, and I think you said it the very important part. Be professional, you don't need to get angry, because that doesn't get you anywhere.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely. Well, excellent. Well, thank you very much again for joining me, Sheridan. It'd be a real pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:It's been a privilege to talk to you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you very much. Many thanks to our headline sponsor and specialist Village Hall Insurance provider, Allied Westminster, the home of VillageGuard, for making this podcast possible. And to online booking system provider Hallmaster, who also sponsor our podcast. And can be found at hallmaster.co.com. You'll be listening to the Village Hall Podcast. We'll be backing up with another episode. For more information, please visit the village halls podcast.com or you'll also find the colour.
