I am expat here and rent flat in Discovery Bay . When my contract completed , I have settled all my outstanding bill such as gas, electricity and water supply by providing the latest reading to respective department for final clearence and made payment accordingly.
On the handover day , landlord checked the house thoroughly together with agent and us ( tenant ) . He told us that he has satified with house handover condition , also checked all our settlement of bills then refund the deposit.
He took about 1.5 hrs to check the house for any damages , keys and bill settlement on the day . On the next day he has sent email to me to give him the money which is government susidisary of electricity bill. As we all knew that CLP company has subsidised some amount every month . When we paid the clearence CLP said we only need to pay $209 instead of $509 because of deduction $300 which is subsidisary amount. Now landlord claimed that $300 subsidized money back from us and telling me that he has lost that money since we have used up.
I believe all the tenant's right is that as long as we settle all the outstanding bills on our last stay.
But now he is insisting to return $300 from me . I don't want any disturbance to me since I knew he is cunning guy after all ? What should I do ? Any idea , what kind of silly thing he can do to me for this ? I believe I should not pay anything to him now .
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Threaten to take him to small claims court. It works.
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Thank for great suggestions you guys . Currently I will ignore him and watch him first. I am kinda worry because last time when we paid the rent by check but the money can't deduct because i forgot to transfer to current account . Then he call my office and chase like hell. And threaten us to pay rent fees on every month before official bank hrs 5 PM .. So terrible ! Hopefully he is not going to do some nasty things to us for this :-) .
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Hi there..
There is the latest mail he sent to us ..
Have you checked withCLP yet...?
They told me that the special statement they issued for you indicates clearly that the payment amount is HKD509-, up to June 11th, 2009...
Since all the Government Subsidy has been used up by you during your stay in the apartment, you should totally pay HKD509- instead of HKD209-.
When you paid the HKD209- at the convenient store, they were not able to know the CLP information system...
And now CLP already conform with me that all the Government Subsidy has been used up by you a number of months ago.
If you go to CLP, they can tell you the exact date on which you've used up the Government Subsidy for this apartment.
There will not be another HKD300- granted to this account at all.
Please deposit the UNPAID HKD300- to my HSBC account ASAP.
If you need all the statements for reference, please advise your fax number.
Seem like he will chase us till he got $300 . ????
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The landlord believes that he has the right to chase after you.
However, the suggestions given in this thread were already sufficient in my opinion.
The OP on the other hand seems not confident of what he can do and afraid of the landlord or of what the landlord can do?
As some have said here, just ignore him!
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IS the bill in YOUR name? If so, the subsidy goes to YOU.
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No, it is under his name .
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then i would just pay the 300 and forget about it...the guys a dick, but is it really worth the hassle?
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well a little googling gave this answer from the HK Electric Website
Will tenants enjoy the subsidy?
The charges shown on the bills of domestic tariff electricity accounts will be the reduced amount after counting the subsidy. If a tenant is the holder of such an electricity account, he/she only needs to pay the adjusted amount shown on the bill. If the account is registered in the name of the landlord but the tenant is required to pay the amounts as shown on the electricity company's bills, he/she can enjoy the subsidy in the same way
http://www.fstb.gov.hk/tb/eng/info/electricitychargesubsidy.html
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:LsXUsBYRPaIJ:www.heh.com/hehWeb/SideBanner5.htm+hong+kong+electricity+charge+subsidy&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=opera
so you do have a case indeed. the landlord can refer to the gov't website
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Thanks for the links Wiz Bang. It makes it clear to me that the "user" of the utility gets the subsidy, not the flat. If you own the flat and pay the bill, you get the credit. If you're renting, it doesn't matter who's name appears on the bill; it is "who pays" the bill.
The OP definitely pays the bill as he paid the last one in a convenience store.
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Thanks for the links Wiz Bang.
Hi, GreenValleys . I am just forget one day and he could called me directly instead of call to office since I am not purposely did it and I paid rent punctually all the time. If landlord want to maintain good relationship with tenant that kind of thing shouldn't be happen unless tenant did it quite often and paid really late . It is just courtesy and respect among people as well as trust . Everything should done wisely and professional way. If landlord like to behave that way , no tanant will be rent his house long term as well as short term and he will lost on agent fees .
If I were landlord , I will talk to tenant personally check what is the problem . This is showing my respect to tenant . Landlord should thank to tenants since we pay every months rental and they earn a lot of income annually . It is a kind of helping each other and we are not enemy just a small business between two parties . So threaten words doesn't necessary to solve the problem.
Again .. Thank for all the valuable advices . My final decision is to ignore him since I am confident on the CLP regulations and verified with CLP officer for my case .
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here is my two cents...
send him back an email stating that you are aware of tenants rights and provide him with the links (the government links are more authoritative sounding). And should he have any further queries that he should directly contact the government body and/ or the CLP officer for that matter.
ignoring the email will push him to harass you with even more emails and phone calls but if you do send him a formal email, the ball is now in his court but your slate is clean.
no pleasantries, just plain businesslike email.
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the tv set is an easy solution... your friend could have just shown him the receipt showing who paid for it.
there will be no question about it but yeah everything in writing in the future
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