Long Term Debt Arising

Hi all,

We have been recieving letters from a couple of companies in the past and recently from companies such as Advantis, the outstanding balances they quote are much more than is believed to be the actual owed amount and the companies involved have been told this in the past. (2 yrs ago)

The companies that are requesting these amounts are Severn Trent Water and British Gas and Scottish Gas, and are now both in the region of £2000.00 I am in the understanding that there may be amounts owed but that there was never any correspondence to support the original amounts or the additional charges that increased them to the current totals.

Edit " The most recent letter is a 'LETTER BEFORE ACTION" from advantis for £2,021.38 for a period ending 18/12/11 it holds no start date and the end date is the date we moved out in which i had spoken to British Gas about the bill on the meter and asked for correspondence to prove where the debt was acquired as the account was on a PAYGE meter"

The debts are from before I met my partner and she has explained that although she had thought the bills had been paid completely there was a period of time in which her mum used her flat and she is unsure if the bills were being paid.

In my opinion they probably weren't and as we can but doubt, this is potentially where the debts have arisen.

Unfortunately I feel that I may have taken the wrong action in that I originally argued the case but upon further letters gave up and brushed it under the carpet.

I would like to pay what we owe and get them off my partners back who is now receiving regular phone calls to her personal mobile, but I feel that the additional costs that they have added are unfair and have pushed us into a corner where we can't afford to pay even though we want to fix the problem.

Please could someone help to explain what the best way to deal with this would be.


Kind Regards
Martin