We live in a 3 bed apartment and pay 200chf a month for heating, hot water, use of laundry room and water. For 5 months last year, August through to December we have just received a refund of 300chf. Our apartment is very warm as well.

Your bill does sound a bit steep. Perhaps see what other people pay on average but Tom's idea of Asloca is possibly your best bet!

This sounds very wrong especially as it was a rather mild and short winter.  Join Asloca, as mentioned above and consult with one of their lawyers.

I have a 4.5 room appartment in Champel (although location should not matter) and I pay CHF 1200 per year for heating.  I usually have to pay around 300-400 extra each year although on two occasions I have had a rebate.

Asloco might help but I think the first step should be to ask the other residents.  What Asloca will do is probably get hold of the actually heating costs for the total building.

So looking at my posting and the other one it does look as if you are paying a lot but if your building is badly insulated, that could explain it.

I also pay for electricity separately (SIG) and of course Billag but that is all

By the way I see you have a 4.5 room appartment.  I have never found the half room.  Am I being ripped off?

This seems rather high to me. We have a 4p, control and pay for our own heat,hot water and electricity. It comes to about 180chf/month. We haven't needed the heat since the end of March.

180chf/mth for just heating already seems high. It sounds a bit outrageous that you'd have to pay more. Is there a Cannibis op. growing in your building?

I'm fairly certain that the "charge" is for all common costs of the building, such as the hallway lights, etc so perhaps in your building these are extremely energy inefficient.  You should, however, be able to examine how the final yearly charges were determined and apportioned.  At least, that is what it says every year in the accounting I receive from my regie.

As there is always the possibility that there was an accounting error, if it were me, I would go the route of asking first before running to Asloca, and use them only if there is a real problem.  Good luck