The running costs of Electricity and Water

Wonder if anyone can advise us on Electricity and Water charges.  We have a two bedroom two bathroom apartment in Los Altos which we have now had for over five years. We currently come over to our apartment around six weeks in the year (not as much as we would like to, due to having to work, but hey looking forward to our retirement in a few years time).

Having a look at our electric and water bills and now questioning why when we are not at our apartment we are still being charged 60E plus for electric every two months and approximately this same amount or more for water .  Our current electricity supplier's are Iberdrola and Aguagest Levante for water.  We find that the yearly costs come in around 240E plus for Water and 360E plus for electricity.  We are being charged these amounts even though we are not  using our apartment. We do not rent it out and nobody uses our apartment in the times we are not there.

Is this the correct tarrif we should be on?  Just feel it's a bit much (as we only use these utilities six weeks a year and are economical with the electric and water when we're there) that we are still paying when the apartment is not occupied.

Any info would be appreciated before I contact the companies to question our billings.

Thanks

 Most of the charges are standing charge, sewerage, taxes etc.  Your water bill seems about right.  We didn't use our place for 2 years and we still got an average water bill of around 56 euros a quarter.

However, your electric sounds rather high.  For the 2 years we didn't use it, our bill was 20 euros every 2 months.  When we stayed there for a month, it shot up to 55 euros for the 2 months and then settled back to 20.30 euros every 2 months.

We were also with aquagest and Iberdrola.  Iberdrola is extremely difficult to get hold off and you would be on the phone for ages before they answer.  It is 24 hours but the English speakers appear not to work at night.  If you go to the Iberdrola office in Torrevieja you may need to take an interpreter with you.

I did eventually find an email address (clientes@iberdrola.com) and they were fairly quick in getting back to me (about 4 days).  

Jaime

Can you post a bill (remove address, ref Nos, name, etc). That way we can see what you are being charged for.

 Actually Iberdrola now have a UK number connecting to English Speaking staff.. It is 0845 030 4032.

You can also subscribe to on-line billing in English.

Juan

Thank you so much to all for your replies.  They have been very helpful.  Will contact Iberdrola and Aquagest Levante directly.

Appreciate your help.

Thanks again