Energy Funds - schemes that clear your arrears on your behalf & where to find them

Something I have not seen broached on here in pursuit of clearing energy debt, is the use of energy funds and arrears support tariffs. If you decide to go down this route, you do accept a degree of liability for the debt however that is no price to pay if your debt is cleared!

Gas/Electric
Each of The Big Six energy companies have what is called an 'Energy Fund'. Those who are experiencing financial hardship - or generally have a low income/extenuating circumstances i.e. disability or vulnerability (e.g. anxiety) that you can prove with medical records, can apply for help with clearing the arrears on their bills. To find out how to apply to your energy fund, simply Google the companies name  and 'energy fund'. Different companies have different approaches, I have had one supplier award a grant with no conditions and another supplier required 3 months of payments to "prove I could afford to pay for my usage going forward" and then arrears were cleared.

Water

I can only speak from MY experience with my water company but I would hope all water companies can offer the same approach. I had £3000 in water debt. There were two ways my company helped with my arrears debt, the first of which EVERYONE could benefit from even without arrears.

1) Applying for a cap on water usage charges.

If you have a medical issue/vulnerability that requires you to use more water, you will need to supply evidence in an application for your usage bills to be capped. It means that you can use as much water as you need but will never go over a set amount for any 6 month period. I qualified for this by having a member of my household with a documented skin condition i.e. eczema, psoriasis etc. I didn't need to pay for a doctors letter as it was proof enough to obtain and show a Repeat Prescription.

2) Arrears Support

This required an application and once accepted I was given a monthly figure (less than £20) that I had to pay consistently, this figure was taken into account with the above cap too. After 12 months, 50% of my £3000 water arrears was 'cleared'. After 24 months, I had completed the plan and my full £3000 debt was cleared. I continue to pay the same amount for my water as I paid on the plan and sign a letter each year to confirm nothing has changed with regards to the cap mentioned above.

A third option is to take a look at the Turn2Us website and see if you qualify for any help with debts/arrears with any of the grant providers. You may be surprised at what different providers exist - there are some for military/ex-military, teachers and professionals as well as other circumstances so always take a look!

Hi,

this is new to me & have no experience of this. But thanks for the info, please share what you have found out.

LS

if you can find out how they work to pay off debts , who how why, that would be good.

Here are a couple ,those I have looked up seem to be all about the same.Read carefully to see if they will
be right for you . Make sure at the same time they do not try to land you with a Smart or Pay as you go
meter.

https://www.eonenergyfund.com/
https://www.npowerenergyfund.com/

I have no other information about these unfortunately other than to say I have used them successfully before on at least 2 occasions. Although there were 'conditions' regarding making payments consistently to release the funds for arrears, I have not been pressured into going on a meter (of any description) for either type of assistance. What I would say is obviously be vigilant in case this changes. Also, please check that you have a good chance of meeting the eligibility criteria for these before applying so as not to overstretch the teams who have to assess the applications which could cause a delay for those in need or create stricter criteria. That said, once I had applied for these funds I was never pressured into paying the arrears whilst the decision was in process.

All in all I have found these have massively helped towards my overall debt reduction and I was treated fairly throughout their processes

dianne1985 wrote:I have no other information about these unfortunately other than to say I have used them successfully before on at least 2 occasions. Although there were 'conditions' regarding making payments consistently to release the funds for arrears, I have not been pressured into going on a meter (of any description) for either type of assistance. What I would say is obviously be vigilant in case this changes. Also, please check that you have a good chance of meeting the eligibility criteria for these before applying so as not to overstretch the teams who have to assess the applications which could cause a delay for those in need or create stricter criteria. That said, once I had applied for these funds I was never pressured into paying the arrears whilst the decision was in process.

All in all I have found these have massively helped towards my overall debt reduction and I was treated fairly throughout their processes

thanks for the response.