An unpleasant surprise awaited in the mailboxes. Arrears in the tens of thousands

Some of the people of Prague are now recovering from the shock they experienced after opening the bill for the supplied heat. Large arrears were waiting for many of them, not only for hot water heating. At the same time, the majority had no idea about the price increase.

During regular service billing, apartment building households usually receive an overview of their annual consumption, which shows items such as water, sewage, waste or even water heating. Households then subsequently learn whether they have an overpayment or, on the contrary, an underpayment that needs to be paid by the specified deadline.

In the last few days, many Prague households opened their bill envelopes and were in for an unpleasant surprise. Arrears of 10,000 and 15,000 were not an exceptional matter among neighbors.

“Overpayments every year and underpayments this year, and quite a big difference. During the complaint, I was only told that energy prices and other small things had increased since January. No one answered my second question,” said a commenter under a post in the Facebook group Řepy I – Řepy II and surroundings.

We contacted several people who had already received the bill, many of them had the same problem and complained of a significant arrears, what bothered them the most was that they were not notified in advance. For example, up to 40 apartments in one apartment building in Řepy received arrears. Some were even told that prices were generally rising and that they should expect an increase in deposits.

“Last year there was an additional payment of 5,000, and I have a schedule of services for five people, because my two children, who have already moved away, were also reported here and I had them deregistered from the services. But I left the amount of the advance. Now I still pay arrears of 16,500 for heat and hot water,” a woman from Prague 5 told the editors.

On the other hand, we also got completely opposite reactions.

“In the house, we have already increased the advances quite a bit during 2021, then also in 2022 and 2023. Precisely so that we don’t have problems with high arrears. This strategy paid off for us. There were no arrears. Specifically, I was overpaid for the first time, even 11,000 crowns,“, for example, a resident of a cooperative apartment from Prague 10 told us.

“At the SVJ meeting, we agreed to increase the total advance payments, we were afraid that we would not have to deal with the fact that we have to pay extra. In addition, some people pay arrears for a relatively long time. In the end, we had no arrears in the house. Someone also had overpayments,” said the owner of the apartment from Prague 4.

A bill that came to one of the households. Source: PrahaIN.cz

Development of energy prices

Heat and hot water can be obtained by households in several different ways. One of them is district heating with heating plants or local heaters, but people can also use gas boilers and heat pumps, which are then placed in the house or directly in the apartment.

In recent years, electricity prices have been significantly affected by the invasion of Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent efforts of Western countries to free themselves from Russian gas supplies. As the Novinky.cz website reported earlier, after the invasion, the price of electricity climbed to 5,000 crowns for 1 megawatt hour on the energy exchange. The invasion also had an effect on the price of gas. It previously hovered around 1,720 crowns per megawatt hour, and shortly after the attack on Ukraine, it almost doubled. The government even resorted to capping prices due to a significant price jump.

Heat was thus more expensive for absolutely everyone, regardless of which source they used for heating.

Pražská teplárenská has also become more expensive, even this year.

“As a result of the increase in the majority of heat distribution costs, the company Pražská teplárenská, as is forced to proceed with a slight increase in prices for 2024. The Veolia Group has been trying to keep heat prices at a lower level for a long time. However, it must take into account the development of fuel prices, emission allowances, the increase in operating and maintenance costs, the high rate of inflation (12.1 percent according to the latest CZSO data) and currently also the increase in the regulated components of energy prices. Nevertheless, Pražská teplárenská will increase the price of heat less compared to the rate of inflation, specifically the increase will be up to 6 percent. The resulting prices will also be affected by the change in the VAT rate based on the government’s consolidation package. From January 1, 2024, a new rate of 12 percent will be applied to heat supplies instead of the current 10 percent,” stated Pražská teplárenská on its website in December 2023.

This year, however, prices are falling in a different way, both in the case of electricity and gas.

How to deal with arrears

According to the Laws for People website, the provider is obliged to send the actual amount of costs and advances for all services to the recipient of the services no later than 4 months after the end of the billing period. Both the overpayment and the underpayment are then settled between the recipient and the provider within 4 months from the date of delivery of the invoice at the latest. Any defects do not affect the due date of the overpayment, but in the case of underpayment, this only applies if the defects do not affect the calculated amount of the underpayment.

Therefore, if some of the households doubt the actual amount of the arrears, they are entitled to submit objections. Therefore, a period of 30 days is set from receipt of the bill, and the provider then has 30 days to review the matter.