Good morning,
We generally only have bookings during the warm summer months but have a booking for this week. We advertise as heating by woodstove only and have only had guests using this twice, both times during Autumn and both times disastrous …another story…The temperatures have dipped and the gîte will require heating. I have no idea what to charge for electricity if my guests choose to pay this for heating. It’s afamily with 2 young girls. It’s small two roomed cottage with shower room.
People often provide a certain daily amount free, often around 7 to 10kW, and then take meter reading at beginning and end and charge the actual price of electricity. You can’t sell electricity for more than it costs you.
What did you include in your contract? As hard to add something on that has not been signalled in advance.
Your alternative is to have a flat rate heating charge.
We don’t like putting on extras, so our overall prices are adjusted to include the heating costs. We know quite precisely what it costs us at different times of year.
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And as an add-on, just found this for you from a french gîte owners site…I love France!
En effet, si vous proposez un loyer “chauffage inclus” vous n’êtes pas à l’abri d’hôtes frileux qui poussent le chauffage à 24°C durant tout leur séjour où d’hôtes insouciants qui sous prétexte que c’est inclus au loyer aèrent le gîte la moitié de la journée en laissant les radiateurs allumés.
Si par contre vous proposez un chauffage “en sus” du loyer, une solution qui serait equitable, en relevant (par exemple) le compteur electrique à l’arrivée et au départ et en facturant la difference, alors là vous tombez devant plusieurs problèmes:
- théoriquement, vous n’êtes pas autorisés par l’EDF (l’ES en alsace) à revendre de l’électricité; Vous pouvez tomber sur un hôte tatillon qui refuse de payer à ce titre.
- d’autre part, si vous voulez garder le statut fiscal de LMNP (loueur de meublé non professionnel) vous ne pouvez vendre que du loyer “tout compris” car sinon c’est un acte de commerce donc vous risquez d’être fiscalement requalifié de commerçant (et là c’est pas les mêmes abattements).
We have only had a problem with our “ chauffage inclus” approach once which was a family from Guadaloupe who came for the February school holiday. We didn’t make any profit that week!! But nice and warm for doing the cleaning after them…
We use the heat from our ground source heat pump, but normally it is used reversed for cooling in the summer.
No mention of that I suppose.
Thanks for your responses. We’ll just offer the wood for the stove as advertised and extra fan heaters if needed and hope they don’t abuse it. I don’t want to get into any bother with re-selling electricity etc. and it’s only for 5 nights…
Ahem do you mean you’ll disconnect the relevant electricity circuit then?