Help! Britih gas have lumped me with a whole bill for a shared house

eva16006159 · 15 October 2007 at 11:40AM

I lived in a shared student house last year with severn other students, some of who i didnt know that well. We all paid the money for gas bills to one student who supposodly paid the bill as it was in their name.

To cut a long drawn out story short, apparently the guy hasnt paid at least some of the bills and now British gas are chasing ME for £800+ because the guy changed the bills into my name without my knowledge!

Two issues

Firstly how can the bill be changed into my name without my knowledge or more immportantly consent

and

Secondly why are they chasing me for all the money when i was one of 7 students and beleived i had paid the bills.

Im now being threatened with court action because im refusing to pay the full amount despite offering a 7th of it even though i dont beleive it to be my fault. Iv spoke to british gas and their credit company on several occasions but they are refusing to do anything.

PLEASE HELP ME!!!

cattie · 15 October 2007 at 11:58AM

Not too sure about this, but perhaps you could ask BGas to furnish you with a copy of the supply agreement that you signed when supposedly agreeing to having the bill in your name.

British Gas must belong to one of the energy watchdogs, so do a google & see if you can come up with some such body who may be able to give you good advice.

eva16006159 · 15 October 2007 at 12:04PM

Thanks, Iv just tried that and contacted energywatch who will hopefully look into it.

olly300 · 15 October 2007 at 1:24PM

If you are the named bill payer then British Gas will chase you as you legally owe them the money not the other housemates. The other housemates owe you the money and it's up to you to get the money off them not British Gas.

Won't help you now but next time you live in a shared house buy a folder, place the folder in a place where everyone can find it and tell everyone to put the communal bills in it.

If the bills are not placed in it then don't pay up.

Even if someone pays a bill by direct debit/online they can get a paper copy of the bill and they should do anyway as most contracts state the landlord is entitled to withold the deposit if the bills are not paid.

SwanJon · 15 October 2007 at 2:03PM

You could ask for information about who put your name on the account, but it could have been your landlord as much as anyone else.
They will send a bill for the amount of energy used at that address, and as you lived there, you can't really complain about your name being on the bill (well, not to British Gas)
If you look at it from their side - how do they know that you had an agreement for one of you to collect the money?

Ideally all of your names would have been on it, but they would still be able to chase one of you for the full amount.
Your complaint is really with your flatmate(s) who took your money and didn't pay the bill.
You could try giving them a forwarding address, but they may not take it.
Your best bet would be to find the rest of your flatmates and get them all involved - it could be that they payments ended up on the wrong account, but you'll need to find out how they payments were made.

Terrylw1 · 15 October 2007 at 10:02PM

Hi,

I have dealt with this issue when I was in the utility industry so here's some advice.

Supplier class this as a "third party issue" as far as the missing payments go. It's not their problem.

All 7 tenants are liable for payment if the tenancy agreements don't include utilities.

To resolve it you have 2 options:

- a set of 7 individual bills. So, the bill is divided 7 ways. Suppliers don't like this though as it can cause problems monitoring payment as their systems may not support it

- they amend the account name to reflect all 7 tenants so you are jointly liable for the overall debt (this is how it should have been set up in the first place)

Now, as far as the tenant stealing your money, thats for you and the others to take legal action against. So, as long as the Supplier hasn't lost it somewhere, it's not their problem and you still owe it.

As far as adding your name, thats pretty underhanded by the tenant. Suppliers often do this to get accounts set up and send you welcome letters/bills etc which you can chose to respond to. A bit like an occupier case where no name is known but usage exists. At the end of the day, if you used the supply - you are liable for it.

Energywatch are really only there to get it sorted for you. So, all they do is send your complant onto the Suppliers complaint teams requesting a response within X days. They will monitor it and the respond itself to ensure that it is fair.

Eitherway, you need to get copies of the tenancy agreements into your Supplier. You will either have a group 1 or 1 each. If you can't find it, ask your landlord since if you all deny occupation, he/she will be made liable until it's resolved.

Energywatch will ask you to do this anyway since the situation is unstable due to the tenant passing debts over.

Good luck

eva16006159 · 16 October 2007 at 10:46AM

Thankyou for the advice.

I have asked for the individual bills in the past as I understand I will have to pay my share as it isnt their fault the money went missing but when I sent the tenancy agreements for all tenents in they said they could not do it that way or put the other names on it without consent.

It seems they dont want to help they just want to get their money no matter who it is from. Im more than willing to pay my share so they get off my back but not the full amount as i dont have contact with the other tenents anymore and the landlord has now sold the property and doesnt really want anything to do with it.

Terrylw1 · 16 October 2007 at 10:09PM

Yeah, it's tricky. It's very difficult to bill 7 ways for the same dates and readings. You can do it but it's the debt collection stages that tend to suffer so they don't like doing it.

If they have got a tenancy agreement with each name, they can easily do it. They don't need the consent at all as the tenancy agreement is a legally binding agreement for the landlord making them all responsible for the utilities (if they are not paid directly to the landlord in the agreement) between the dates mentioned. The landlord can in fact send that in him/herself to get the account sorted out. Tenancy agreements are legal consent and Suppliers just start accounts up based on them.

So, they've told you wrong there. Suggest you speak to a manager and then if no joy go straight to Energywatch as you have done everything expected to resolve it and they are preventing you. Then you will find it will be swiftly sorted.

On the issue with the theft, might be best to ask the CAB on whether this needs to be a civil or criminal matter since they are free and solicitors are not!

Have a look at this thread about BGas, it's got the MD's address details on...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=570421

P.S. despite selling the landlord is legally responsible for that property until he/she proves otherwise by a tenancy agreement.

Help! Britih gas have lumped me with a whole bill for a shared house

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