Electricity bills

H Lisa, I’m afraid they are much higher. We bought a house, through our company a year ago & have seen the price rise to 380 lev some months. We are fortunate enough that be able to change our tariff to a personal one though. The cost has escalated massively over the past 12 months.

Hi Mel - thanks for your reply, but 380 lev a month is fantastic compared to the 1000 lev a month I'm paying for a flat. Even though the cost has escalated, surely the commercial tariffs aren't over 5 times higher than the residential/personal tariffs?

Hi Lisa, unfortunately most foreign buyers are not aware of individual vs, commercial electricity accounts when buying a property in Bulgaria and easy fall prey. I almost fell prey myself reserving an apartment without individual electricity account in Bansko but my lawyer advised me against buying. In the end, it cost me 2000€ in reservation fee but it would have cost much more if I had bought. The only advice I can give you is to try installing a wood or fuel based individual heating system. You might also use indoor propane gas heaters. If that's not possible because no chimney is present you can try to let the owners vote on it at the general assembly (either chimney installation, central heating with different fuel and/or individual accounts). But if private owners are minority or absent then you will not get a vote in your favour. You could also do an extensive renovation with high standard insulation, thermodynamic boilers, triple glazed window, ventilation with heat recovery, etc.

Most commercial landlords use a self calculating rate to include for “costs associated” with reading the meter and collecting the communal payments, dealing with arrears from tenants etc. sadly that’s part of the price for communal living.

@Peko Phil - thank you! 'Self-calculating rate' - wonderful expression. Yes, that must be the case, because I simply don't believe that CEZ charges 5 times the residential rate for commercial entities. Another person here told me that you can get a 50% rebate for high electricity prices, but the Property management company hasn't answered my emails regarding this. Perhaps they've already claimed the rebate for themselves

@euronomad - thanks for your informative and helpful reply. I wish I'd had the same lawyer as you when buying - I simply didn't have any idea. I will look into the possibility of HVAC here, as I had that in the UK and it was very economical indeed. I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to anything combustible - I don't think I'd get a wink of sleep worrying about CO2 fumes or being burnt alive......

It might be helpful to remember that commercial rate is just the market rate, residential is heavily subsidised/capped by the govt.

They used to be very similar rates prior to the recent increases in cost.

I was paying 4x residential rate last winter.  Heating would have been ~2-3000lev a month, if i didn't have air conditioning. 

Prices will go back down eventually, might take a couple of years though.  Air con, pellet burners etc will all help

@Lisa PD

Pirin Golf is a very nice complex, so hopefully you will enjoy it even if it is a tad expensive.

I think you'll find that AC units use less electricity than radiators, so that might be worth considering.

Lisa, unfortunately commercial power rates are massively more than residential rates, even for what are essentially residential properties. I believe it changed last year, as I read articles about it on Bulgarian news sites.

For "businesses" that are simply non-EU citizens required to have a non-functional business to own a property, it's possible to apply directly to the electricity company for a reduction. Unfortunately as you are billed via the property management company, which is an actual functioning  business, I'm not sure you will have that option. You should be able to find out on the electricity company site what their commercial rates are and see how big a mark-up the management company are adding, but it's legitimate that they can do so and you may not have much recourse to prevent it.

I am sure I will find the same issue for a while, as I am buying my house by installments and for the next 18 months, the estate agent still legally owns it. I'm not using much electricity, but I'm expecting big bills and will be trying to keep my power use as low as possible.

It sucks, but that is how it is.

Lisa PD,

I feel so sorry for you . You do not deserve it !

It is terrible that the seller or estate agent did not informed you about that your residential property ( by definition ) will have commercial rate for electric .

I think in USA (my home country ) this will be consider it as unethical, bad practice and the legal reason to go to the court.

I am wonder now if most of all Resorts have the same approach /same trick to strip their residents from hard earned money.

Just a note to confirm that commercial rates are far higher we were told this week when we moved ours out of the company to a personal account that we were paying 10 times too much, it also apparently then takes 6 weeks before the change becomes effective lol at that.

Electric rads will burn power fast our neighbour has them and was paying for personal use 800 lev last yr a month so dont use them climatic i think is the cheapest option. I was told also that there has been a government hand out to all company accounts and this should be shown in your management accounts as a credit against electric so certainly ask for that as we got one.

good luck ozzy