Find studio Message Viewing

Fair Usage Policy

Fair Usage Policy

Definitions

In this Fair Usage Policy, the following words shall (unless the context otherwise requires) have the
following meanings:

“FUP” this Fair Usage Policy.
“Premises” the site address, identified on the Tenancy Agreement.
“Tenancy Agreement” your Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (AST), or other contractual rental
agreement, relating to the Premises.
“Us, We, Our” the landlord/Westgate One management team.
“Your, You” the tenant, occupier, student of the Premises.

Introduction

As a Westgate One tenant, your energy, water, and internet bills are included within your Tenancy
Agreement and the following FUP applies to you.

This is to ensure that that your energy, internet and water usage is not excessive and kept within
reasonable and sensible limits.

The allowances are designed to be accurate based on your property size and if you are sensible with
your energy consumption, it is unlikely that you will exceed these limits.

Electricity

Your electricity is included in your bills package.

To ensure that your energy usage is not excessive and stays within reasonable allowances the
following fair usage policy will apply:

A yearly (52 week) allowance of 2,000 kwh will apply to your tenancy.

If two people are named on the tenancy agreement, then the allowance is 3,000 kwh per year.

This allowance is calculated by Electrical contractors, and you are therefore unlikely to exceed this limit if you are sensible with your energy usage.

Where your tenancy is for less than 12 months, these figures will apply on a pro-rata basis.

If you exceed this usage, we reserve the right to apply a charge to cover the amount by which you exceeded the allowance, which will be at the contracted unit rate of £0.40 p/kwh.

We complete periodic checks on your usage throughout your tenancy and you will be notified if your pro-rata usage is exceeding the above allowance.

Water & Wastewater

Your water is included in your bills package.

For metered homes in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, you should not need to use more than 65 cubic meters of water and 60 cubic meters of wastewater per annum for 1 bed houses as single occupancy is. If you are a couple, this increases to 100 cubic meters of water and 92.5 cubic meters of wastewater per annum. *

If you exceed these limits, we reserve the right to apply a Supplemental Charge to cover the amount by which you exceeded the allowance.

* Data taken from Southern Water’s website, found at:

https://www.southernwater.co.uk/help-and-support/average-water-use-and-cost/

Hot Water

In your studio the amount of hot water you use is recorded separately, due to the electricity used to heat the water tank system in the block.

Included in your bills package is 20 m3 (20,000 litres) of hot water usage per year (52 weeks) and if at the end of your tenancy you exceed this usage, you will be charged £0.04 per additional litre.

Internet

The internet service is included in your bills package.

To ensure that your broadband usage is not excessive at peak times, so that the performance is not affected across Westgate One, we ask that you are considerate with the volume of bandwidth you use and the number of videos, files etc that you choose to download at any one time.

There is plenty of bandwidth for everyone and the service has been set up to ensure that everyone gets a fair share of the bandwidth and lots of this is done on a trust basis. When demand is low there may be extra bandwidth available; please use this considerately and don’t abuse the system by downloading large volumes of music, games, and video etc.

If you have large files or coursework to download, please do this during off peak periods e.g., overnight etc.

Your internet usage will be monitored strictly by SOTA.

The internet service is not to be improperly used.

Examples of improper use are listed below:

  • Downloading illegal movies or images.
  • Using streaming services, such as BBC iPlayer without a TV licence. This will result in the BBC blocking your connection to this service but also the entire Westgate One development, so it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the correct licensing in place BEFORE you use a TV or any streaming services.
  • Streaming or transmitting any unlawful, harassing, abusive, libellous, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, menacing, or discriminatory material of any kind, which could cause distress to any user.
  • SOTA reserves the right to access and disclose any information, data, graphics, video, sound, file and other content created by, provided by or accessed by you in order to comply with applicable laws and to protect itself, Westgate One and its users.
  • Any improper use will result in your internet being suspended effective immediately until the issues have been resolved.
  • In your apartment you will have a Wireless Access Point, which is a small device mounted on your wall or ceiling.
  • This equipment is not to be tampered with or switched off at any point and if you have any issues or queries relating to the WAP please contact SOTA support directly at support@sota.co.uk.