Energy Bill Battle and Restrictive Covenants

Loading player...
When it comes to keeping our homes warm nearly all of us rely on just a handful of big energy suppliers. And during the winter, especially with the cold temperatures, we rely on those suppliers to do their job. When they don't customers can firstly complain to their supplier but, if they're still not happy, they can take their complaint to something called the Energy Ombudsman. It's a free, impartial service and gets thousands of complaints every year. In most cases, when the ombudsman makes a decision, that decision is followed to the letter, quickly, by suppliers. But in some cases that doesn't happen - we investigate one listener's battle over a £1,700 bill.

HMRC has told MPs it's going to take more care in how it handles its effort to crack down on fraud and error, after a mistake which led to thousands of families wrongly losing their Child Benefit.

It was the Scottish government's Budget this week and there were quite a few changes promised for people's pockets, we'll round up the details.

And, there's a huge amount to think about when buying a home, from sorting the mortgage to getting quotes for removal companies, but one thing you might not be expecting is that your new home might come with rules telling you what you can and cannot do with it. Restrictive covenants are binding conditions written into the actual property deeds or contracts. What can you do to protect yourself from any financial impacts?

Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Reporters: Dan Whitworth, Eimear Devlin and Phil Simm
Researcher: Jo Krasner
Editor: Jess Quayle

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 17th January 2026)
13 Feb English United Kingdom Business

Other recent episodes

Energy Ombudsman Powers and Cheques

The chair of Parliament’s Energy Select Committee has told Money Box it’s “vital” the Energy Ombudsman is given new, stronger powers as quickly as possible. Bill Esterson says that it is too easy for energy suppliers to simply ignore ombudsman decisions leaving consumers powerless. Energy UK, which represents suppliers, says…
21 Feb 26 min

Money Box Live: Do Electric Cars Add Up?

Buying a new car last year increasingly meant going electric. Around one in four new car buyers made that choice with almost half a million electric cars registered over the year, according to industry figures. That means there are more than 1.8 million fully electric cars driving around the UK,…
18 Feb 30 min

Money Box Live: Inheritance Tax

There's a topic that often appears in the Money Box inbox, inheritance tax. It's money paid by the estate of someone once they die, as long as the total value of all their property, possessions, cash and soon pensions are worth more than a fixed threshold set by the government…
10 Feb 33 min

Child Benefit and Credit Cards

More than 60% of parents who lost their child benefit because the tax office believed incorrectly they'd moved abroad, were in fact eligible for the benefit, which is worth at least a hundred pounds a month. As we've reported on this programme before, the mistakes were made after travel data…
6 Feb 30 min

Money Box Live: Women's Finances

It's 50 years since the Sex Discrimination Act meant all women could take out mortgages and loans without needing a man to approve it. In this programme we'll take a look at how things have changed for women's finances since then and what challenges they still face. From the cost…
3 Feb 33 min