Shared Housing Paying the Bills

WesFoster wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure if this is the place for this, but hopefully someone may be able to direct me elsewhere if not.

I was in a house share last year, and everything else was paid fine but I was lead tennant for the Water (with United Utilities). Me and another housemate paid off our share fine, though the two others (to my knowledge) still haven't.

We set up a deal where they were supposed to swap the names over and pay the rest off (so that I didn't have to deal with their calls or trying to organise things on their behalf). I've been in touch with them to try and find out if they've paid it off, if they've swapped the names over etc, but had no response from them at all. I recently started getting spam calls from Avantis, about a business proposition, which looks to me like a debt collection company. I'm in no other debt so can only assume that this may be something to do with United Utilities and the money that's owed, seen as presumably I'm still the lead tennant.

I've spoken to United Utilities about it a few times, but they've always said that the other housemates need to be the ones to swap the names over. I've seen a few places to not speak directly to Avantis yet because it isn't helpful.

I'm not sure exactly what my options are for trying to get them to pay it, or at least ensure that they have the liability. If the worst comes to the worst it isn't the largest amount of money in the world to have lost if I do have to just pay it myself, but obviously this is something that I'd want to completely avoid if at all possible.

Does anyone have any past experience of this, or can anyone offer any advice as to what the best course of action is?

Thanks in advance,
Wes.