In January 2024, a number of boiler manufacturing companies – including Baxi, Glow-worm, Ideal, Vaillant and Worcester Bosch – increased the wholesale price of each boiler they sold by between £95-£120 (or £114-£144 with VAT). This was in response to a proposed government green scheme called the Clean Heat Market Mechanism.
: choose a boiler brand that’s well rated by customers and heating engineersThe planned initiative meant that boiler companies would face hefty fines if heat pumps did not make up at least 4% of their sales. Specifically, the government said that, were the scheme to go ahead, the manufacturers would pay £3,000 per missed heat pump installation.
Boiler companies campaigned against the proposal, and some of them also hiked up the prices of gas boilers to preemptively absorb the potential cost of penalties – dubbed by some as a 'boiler tax'.
But in March 2024, the government announced that it would be delaying the scheme, with a new proposed implementation date of April 2025.
As some customers may have already been paying increased boiler prices for three months, many of the boiler companies involved said they'd return that money.
However, because boiler manufacturers don't typically sell directly to domestic customers, whether or not you are owed money back will depend on whether the installer you used passed this extra cost on to you.
Boiler installers and distributors should prioritise communications with their customers and create a clear and easy process for refunds where necessary.
Who is owed money in the 2024 'boiler tax' refund?
Some customers who bought boilers between 1 January and the end of March will get this money back from whoever they bought their boiler from. You may have seen this referred to in media reports or elsewhere as a 'refund' to pay back the 'boiler tax', but neither of those things are technically accurate, which makes it tricky to know whether you're affected if you bought a boiler earlier this year.
The extra cost was added by some manufacturers to their wholesale price. Because the decision to return the money in light of a change in the government’s plans was made voluntarily by those companies – and isn’t due to a product fault or issue – that means it isn’t really a ‘refund’. So it doesn’t carry the same protections for customers. However, if you bought a boiler during this time period, it’s worth checking whether or not the extra money is likely to be paid back to you.
Boilers are sold through a supply chain – it's likely that yours was purchased by a tradesperson who then sold it to you. They may have bought it directly from a manufacturer or from another distributor. If they knew about the additional cost, your trader may have passed it on to you, or they may have just absorbed it as part of their own fluctuating expenses. If you were told by your trader that you were paying extra to cover this additional cost, you are within your rights to ask for it back.
Some bigger boiler companies have put out statements on their plans for returning the money to the traders they sold to. But some traders may need to chase up their own suppliers for information. Regardless, if your trader told you that you were paying an extra cost for your boiler due to this price increase, they should return this if the cost is being passed back.
Wolseley, a distributor which sells to traders, told us that it had refunded 99% of its customers by 11 April. It said that the few remaining customers – traders who had paid in cash and so couldn’t be automatically refunded – should get in touch with proof of purchase before 30 June to receive a full refund.
BOXT, which sells directly to consumers, told us that it had frozen its prices in January 2024, and so its customers hadn’t had the extra cost passed on to them.
To find a vetted tradesperson near you, head toWhat to do if you are affected
If you bought a boiler between 1 January and the end of March 2024, and you haven’t heard about this issue from your installer yet, we recommend you get in touch with them.
Ask whether the additional cost was passed on to them by their supplier and whether this was passed on to you in turn. If it was, you are within your consumer rights to ask for this to be returned.
source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/boiler-tax-repayments-explained-ama7T8a3CHm4