LPG Terms and Conditions
1. Introduction
Here at Frank Energy, our aim is to sell it to you straight – and that means we’ll tell it to you straight too. These terms and conditions are for the supply of LPG to your property and apply from when you sign up to be a Frank customer and continue until our relationship has ended, or in some cases (such as in respect of anything the distribution companies need) – 6 months after our relationship has ended.
At Frank Energy we don’t do long term contracts. As long as you pay us for the LPG we supply while you’re our customer (along with any other applicable charges), you can come and go as you please. This also means your rates may change from time to time. If we need to change your rates or these terms and conditions at any time, we will give you 30 days’ notice before the change takes effect. Notice will be provided to the email address you use when you sign up, or via mail
2. How do you become a Frank Energy customer?
You can apply to be a Frank Energy customer by signing up online or over the phone and providing us with the information we request – we’ll treat your information with respect in accordance with our Privacy Policy
In some cases, we may request additional information from you before your application is processed. Don’t worry, we will tell you why we need this information. If you choose not to provide us with any information, your application may not be able to proceed.
You can also add another person to be an authority on your account. This means that they will be able to make decisions about your account, but you will still be responsible for any payments on the account.
3 Joining
In order to be a Frank Energy customer, you must provide an email address for the purposes of billing and communications. If you do not wish to provide an email address, we reserve the right to decline your application.
All invoices or notices to you will be provided to this email address and will be considered to have been received by you the day after it was transmitted to the email address you provided to us, or posted to our internet billing system or sent to you by electronic means.
If your application is accepted, we will supply LPG to your property in accordance with these terms and conditions and we’ll be in touch to let you know the date from which we will start supplying your property with LPG. In order to supply your property with LPG, we also have arrangements in place with distribution companies, which have requirements that we explain below.
4. Rental of LPG Equipment
Frank Energy will rent you equipment, including the LPG bottles to supply LPG to your property. The equipment remains the property of Frank Energy or our distribution company at all times and must not be sold, rented, charged or transferred without our prior written consent. Title to the equipment will not pass to you unless agreed in writing. You must ensure that the equipment does not become damaged or a fixture or fitting of your property.
You must only allow the LPG bottles to be filled with LPG supplied by us or our distribution company.
You must keep the equipment in your control on your property. You are responsible for the security and condition of the equipment. You must notify us if the equipment is damaged or interfered with in any way, and you must not modify or work on the equipment unless this is authorised by us. Any equipment lost or damaged by you or while in your possession will be invoiced at replacement value.
5. Access to your property and equipment on your property
In order to provide you with our services, from time to time you must be able to provide us, our distribution company or any other third party as notified to you by us safe, unobstructed, and slip-free access to your property and any LPG bottles or associated equipment upon reasonable notice from us, or in the case of an emergency, immediately.
In providing us with safe access to your property and any LPG bottles or associated equipment, you must keep any dogs or other pets secured, make sure any trees or vegetation around any equipment we use to provide you with our services are regularly trimmed, keep us informed with any relevant information about your property and comply with any of our reasonable requests. If we have any issues with safe or unobstructed access to your property, we’ll let you know and give you a chance to sort these, but if the issues are not sorted, we may no longer be able to provide you with our services. If you are unable to grant us access to your property please let us know and we will try and work out alternative options, however if we can’t find an acceptable solution, we may not be able to provide you with our services.
When entering your property our representatives will always carry identification.
You must provide and maintain, at your cost, and to our satisfaction, appropriate space to securely house the equipment. The equipment should not be installed:
• in an inaccessible location;
• under a stairway;
• in a location with no air movement across the equipment;
• under a building (unless permitted by the LPG Association Code of Practice No 2);
• in a position where it obstructs exits from a building;
• buried in the ground; or
• in a place where damage is likely to occur.
6. Delivery
You must request a delivery of LPG when it is required.
We will do what we reasonably can to deliver the LPG bottles to you within a reasonable time of receiving your delivery request and in accordance with our usual delivery schedule or in accordance with an agreed delivery schedule. You acknowledge that delivery is subject to, among other things, availability or any interruption of delivery services or our ability to deliver to you. Deliveries will be made during normal business hours unless we both agree otherwise.
We may, at our sole discretion and for whatever reason, change our delivery schedule by providing you with at least 7 days’ notice.
You must provide us and our contractors with safe and easy access to your property for delivery of the LPG bottles. If you do not provide us and our contractors with access in accordance with section 5, you may be charged a non-delivery fee or an additional delivery fee.
7. Safety
You must ensure that the property where the equipment will be used complies with any relevant laws and regulations and remains safe to use. We may delay or suspend delivery at any time if we consider that:
• access to your property is unsafe;
• the delivery conditions represent a hazard to our delivery drivers or the distribution company's delivery drivers; or
• the connection or space to securely house the equipment is not compliant or safe.
You will ensure that your current LPG installation has been certified by a registered gas fitter in accordance with regulations under the Gas Act 1992. You must not store more than 100 kgs of LPG on the property unless agreed to in writing by us in advance (at our sole discretion) and you have a current site location certificate in accordance with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 and associated regulations. The LPG Association may be able to assist you in complying with this requirement.
All equipment must be used in a safe and prudent manner. You must not tamper or interfere with any equipment except to the extent that action needs to be taken to protect the health and safety of persons or to prevent damage to property. Please report any escape or smell of LPG from the equipment or any interference with the equipment to us immediately.
Upon delivery, you become responsible for any loss, damage or deterioration of the LPG bottles or of the LPG in those bottles.
8. Fees and payment
We will charge you for LPG supplied to you based on the fees set out in the Frank Energy LPG price list, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing, including LPG bottle rental, LPG bottle refill and LPG delivery charges. These fees and charges may change from time to time, with any change in fees being applicable 30 days after we have notified you of a change.
We may also charge you for other products or services we supply or arrange for you, but if these circumstances arise (or are likely to arise) we will always contact you first and let you know the amount, reasons for the charge and what you could do to avoid the charge.
We will send you a monthly invoice for the applicable billing period to the email address provided by you. You’ll need to pay the total amount (including GST) set out on your invoice by the due date, payment after the due date may incur a late payment fee. We will never charge interest on late payments.
If you are unable to pay your invoice, please let us know and we will try and help you in making payment arrangements. If you do not pay your invoice by the due date and you haven’t disputed your invoice with us, we may put you though our credit recovery process which may lead to discontinuation of your supply (for more on discontinuation, see section 12 – Discontinuation). In addition, you will need to pay us any costs we incur in collecting money that you owe us.
If your invoice is incorrect, you are only required to pay the correct amount and we will refund any amount we have over-charged, or you will pay any amount we have under-charged. This means you will still be responsible for the payment of all the LPG you are supplied.
If you dispute any amount payable under an invoice, you must give us notice at least 3 business days prior to the due date of the invoice, identifying the amount in dispute, and giving full reasons for the dispute. We will investigate your dispute as quickly as possible. If you dispute the amount on your invoice, or any part of your invoice, you must still pay the undisputed amount by the due date. If you do not pay the undisputed portion of your invoice, and fail to contact us, we may remove the LPG bottles from your property.
We will not stop supplying you with LPG if there is a genuine dispute between us in relation to an invoice and you have paid us any undisputed amount by the due date. Within 10 days of resolving any dispute about your invoice, we will credit your account with any amount we owe you, or you will pay us any amount you owe us, unless agreed otherwise.
If you move, have your LPG supply permanently discontinued or no longer require LPG:
• and you have paid the full monthly LPG bottle rental, we are not required to apply a pro rata credit to your Frank Energy account for the remaining LPG bottle rental period;
• and you have not paid the full monthly LPG bottle rental, you must pay the full monthly LPG bottle rental for the relevant period;
• if a full LPG bottle is returned, Frank Energy will apply a credit for this bottle to your final LPG account; and
• if a partially used LPG bottle is returned, Frank Energy will not refund the unused portion of LPG.
9. Liability
Nothing in this section affects any rights you have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and the Fair Trading Act 1986, except if you’re using our services in a way that the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 refers to as business use or for business transactions. In that case, you acknowledge the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and sections 9, 12A and 13 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 do not apply to the services we provide to you.
If we directly damage your property as a result of our negligence or breach of this agreement, we may choose to replace or repair the property or pay you compensation – in each case up to a maximum value of $10,000 for any event or series of closely related events. If the loss is caused by our deliberate or wilful actions, there is no limit to our liability. Other than this (and except to the extent we are liable to you under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or the Fair Trading Act 1986) we will not be liable to you for any other loss or damages (including any indirect or consequential loss or loss of profit or revenue).
Other than your obligation to pay your bills, if you are liable to us, the maximum amount you will be liable for is $10,000 in respect of any event or series of related events – except where that loss is caused by your deliberate or wilful actions or has caused damage to the equipment – in such cases no limit to your liability will apply and you may be liable to the distribution company. This provision in this section (9 Liability) is also intended for the benefit of the distribution company and is enforceable by them under the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017.
10. The distribution company
The distribution company we work with to supply LPG requires us to ensure that the information contained below is agreed to by you. When you become our customer, you agree to those arrangements as part of this agreement.
11. Liability of the distibution company
The distribution company has agreed to be liable to us in certain instances. We may decide, at our sole discretion, whether to seek to recover any sum from the distribution company in respect of the loss or damage you have suffered. If we recover any sum from the distribution company, we will forward to you the amount recovered that applies to you (minus our reasonable costs of recovering the amount). Other than paying you this amount, we will have no liability to you in respect of any defaults by the distribution company.
If you acquire goods or services for the purposes of a business, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 does not apply to the services provided by the distribution company to the maximum extent permitted by law.
You indemnify the distribution company from any claim made by any third party in respect of any damage or loss to any third party from the LPG equipment while the equipment is in your possession. This condition, and the other terms in this agreement which refer to the distribution company, are for the benefit of and enforceable by the distribution company under subpart 1 of Part 2 of the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017.
12. Discontinuation and termination
We may terminate this agreement at any time and discontinue your supply by providing you with at least 14 days' notice if we are, or think we will become, unable to supply for whatever reason (including if we are unable to facilitate delivery of LPG to your property). In such cases we will not charge you a termination or discontinuation fee and we will arrange with you the return of our equipment.
In addition to our and the distribution company's other rights of discontinuation under these terms and conditions, your LPG supply may be discontinued if:
• you are no longer being supplied electricity or reticulated gas by Frank Energy;
• you do not pay the undisputed portion of an invoice;
• you fail to grant the rights of access set out in these terms and conditions;
• the location of your equipment does not allow the safe supply of LPG;
• the location of your equipment does not comply with the relevant laws and regulations;
• we or the distribution company consider your equipment to be unsafe; or
• you breach any other term of these terms and conditions.
We may ask you to pay a discontinuation fee in respect of the action taken by us in the paragraph above. Except in the case of emergency we will tell you at least 7 days before we discontinue your supply of LPG. We will also provide you with a final warning at least 24 hours before discontinuing your supply and let you know what you need to do to avoid discontinuation.
We will not discontinue your LPG supply in relation to non-payment of our bills if you have an active complaint about this with Utilities Dispute Limited until the complaints process has been exhausted and only if we believe it is fair and reasonable to do so.
When you want to start your LPG supply again, please contact us. If our agreement has been terminated, you may need to sign up as a customer again. You must not attempt to carry out the reconnection yourself. Before we agree to reconnect your LPG supply, we may require you to meet certain requirements which we will notify you of at the time.
If you want to terminate our agreement or you want your supply to be discontinued, you must let us know at least 2 weeks beforehand. These terms and conditions will come to an end when we receive payment in full of all outstanding fees and charges.
Upon termination of this agreement you will allow us and/or our contractors and agents to enter your property and collect the equipment. To avoid doubt, this right survives the termination of this agreement.
If we agree to supply LPG to your new property, these terms and conditions will apply to your new property. If you are not going to remain our customer after your move, our charges to you will stop on the date agreed between you and us. This agreement will come to an end when we receive all outstanding payments from you. If the new occupier does not take over the supply from Frank Energy within a reasonable time period, we will collect the equipment in line with the distribution cycle for your region, and responsibility for the equipment will pass to us when we collect the equipment.
If you wish to transfer your LPG account to another property or another person, you must let us know and we will discuss with you what is required for the transfer. If you have told us that you are switching to another retailer, we will work with you to facilitate the switch and stop supplying you in accordance with applicable regulations and industry standards.
13. Complaints
If you have a complaint please contact us. Our contact details are on our website and we have an internal resolutions process that aims to work with you to resolve any complaint with 20 working days (unless we tell you we need more time to investigate or resolve your complaint). We are also a participant in the free “Energy Complaints Scheme” provided by Utilities Disputes Limited – you may also file a complaint with them at any time.
We may at any time transfer to someone else all or any part of our rights and/or obligations under this agreement. We will let you know if we do this. We may also sub-contract or delegate our rights and/or obligations under this agreement to other people or companies.
We reserve the right to change these terms and conditions at any time. Updated terms will be uploaded to our website. We will not necessarily give you notice of an update to these terms unless we reasonably believe they will have an adverse effect on you, so please check back regularly.
Last updated: 10 October 2022