Energy Bill Battle and Restrictive Covenants

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 825 Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts.
0:05.6	Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might like our podcast too.
0:12.1	You might. You might. It is called Sightraught with me, Nick Grimshaw.
0:15.2	And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music.
0:18.2	All the news, all the cultural happenings in the UK and beyond.
0:22.2	And great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can also enjoy lots of playlists,
0:27.7	music mixes and live radio. Everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind.
0:34.5	But obviously start with our podcast, sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously.
0:40.1	So if you like music, listen on BBC Sans.
0:40.5	Hello.
0:46.2	In today's Moneybox podcast, HMRC has told MPs it needs to take more care as it cracks down on fraud and error after a mistake that affected thousands of families.
0:50.4	And the centuries-old covenants on your home that can cost you or just confuse you.
0:55.4	I'm not allowed to keep pigs, and I'm not allowed to play the piano after 9pm.
1:00.8	But first, a major British energy company has apologised to a customer
1:05.2	after a moneybox investigation into claims it had ignored the energy ombudsman.
1:10.0	When it comes to keeping our homes warm and
1:11.7	powered, most of us rely on just a handful of big energy suppliers, and we rely on those suppliers
1:17.0	to do their job. When they don't, we can complain, and then we can take our complaints to the
1:21.9	Energy Ombudsman. It's a free, impartial service, and it deals with tens of thousands of consumer
1:27.1	problems every single year.
1:29.2	In most cases, the Ombudsman's ruling is quickly followed by the supplier.
1:33.1	But in thousands of cases like Beth's, that just doesn't happen.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.