Free cash to help pay for utility arrears
As well as grants to make your home more energy efficient, some utility companies also offer help if you have large arrears on your gas, electricity or water bills. Please let us know if you have success with any of these schemes.
Energy
Three providers offer an Energy Trust scheme for their account holders in hardship, to help cover energy arrears and sometimes other essential household items. Essential items are covered by Further Assistance Payments and can include white goods, boiler repairs or funeral costs. Those who live in a home supplied by the provider, but are not account holders, can apply for the Further Assistance Payments only.
You need to complete a full income and expenditure budget sheet along with proof of your income, give details on how your arrears have built up, eg, due to illness or redundancy, and say how the grant will help you. It can take several weeks to process your claim but can give £1,000+ in support.
Links: British Gas Energy Trust / EDF Energy Trust / Npower Energy Fund
For other providers or general advice, Homeheat is a not-for-profit phone line that gives advice on grants (both for energy arrears and insulation), benefits, reduced tariffs, special payment options and energy saving tips to people struggling to pay their bills and keep warm. You can call 0800 33 66 99 or check the Homeheat website for info.
Also see the Cheap Gas & Electricity guide.
Water
The Water UK website has info on all the water company schemes. Help from all providers includes WaterSure (see below), referrals to hardship funds and help in applying for direct payment from benefits (Water Direct).
If you're on a meter and a means tested benefit, and either have three or more children under the age of 19 or someone in the household with a medical condition needing lots of water, you could get help from theWaterSure scheme which caps your bills at the average bill for your area.
Some providers also offer other special tariffs and/or New Start/Restart (name depends on where you live), a scheme that can match payments or write off some of your debt if you enter an arrears payment plan.
Also see the Cut Water Bills guide.
Phone
Some means-tested benefits recipients (eg, income support, iESA, iJSA and pension credit) can get BT's special basic tariff for £14.40/quarter (rather than per month).
The package includes £4.50 worth of calls to landlines and free weekend calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers up to 60 minutes, although it can be costly after (10.7p a minute, plus 3.1p for each phone call, for normal calls).
The tariff lets you make and receive calls and stops certain calls being made, eg, mobile or premium rate numbers. You can also call to check your bill amount at any time, or check online, all helping to keep costs down and budget for your bills.
Also see the Cheap Home Phones guide.
Quick Stats: Who can apply? Anyone with utility arrears, usually a customer of the provider.What's the maximum award? Varies. What does it cover? Repayment of arrears and some household items.
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Source - moneysavingexpert.com/family/grant-grabbing
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