British Gas demanding money from us from 2 years ago!

hayley_85

I have just returned home from work to find a letter from British Gas saying we owe them £141.08 from a final bill on 17/10/06. We moved into our house on the 4/10/06 and immediately changed suppliers to NPower and know for a fact we paid off British Gas as I specifically remmeber paying the bill and receiving a letter from them saying our account was closed. They claim they have tried contacting us which they havent and now have passed the debt onto a debt collection agency. On the letter they dont know our names they only put 'The Occupiers'. What position are we in regards to ignoring this letter? Can they actually do anything in terms of collecting this supposed debt? Annoying I no longer have the letter from British Gas confirmed that we paid as it was over 2 years ago and assumed I would no longer need it after I'd kept it for over a year in case of anything like this happenning! I didn't expect it now!

Any advice on what we should do would be appreciated!!

Fire_Fox

When does the bill relate to? What are the meter readings on the bill? Are they for before you took occupation or afterwards?

hayley_85

They havent given us any of those details they just sent a letter saying we owe them £141.08 from an outstanding balance on the final bill and they have passed it onto EOS Solutions to collect and the second page is a letter from EOS Solutions saying we owe the above amount and a payment slip on the bottom. But since we only lived in the house for 13 days before the final bill letter they sent it would be impossible for us to have racked up a bill of £141.08!!!!

bristol_pilot

When you moved in did you immediately ring up British Gas with a meter reading? If not, the bill is for gas used by the previous occupiers but you have no way of proving it. It is very unfair, but chances are you will end up paying this.

Bunnie1982

As the letter is addressed to The Occupier, they have no legal standpoint. To be able to take action against you they would need to have your names.

Can you be certain that the debt doesn't relate to the previous occupier of the property?

hayley_85

To be honest i can't remember if I did but I'm sure its something I would have done. If I call British Gas would they be able to tell me what period this bill relates to and if I called them with a meter reading when we moved in do you think?

bristol_pilot

Bunnie1982 wrote: »

As the letter is addressed to The Occupier, they have no legal standpoint. To be able to take action against you they would need to have your names.

Sorry but this is incorrect. You are liable and can be chased for bills addressed to The Occupier.

hayley_85

i would imagine that it has to relate to the previous occupant just for the fact that a) i know we paid british gas a final amount when we switched supplier when we first moved in but it certainly wasnt £141 and b) there is no way we could have used that amount in the 13 days we lived there before they supposedly sent us this final bill with that amount on it.

I was wondering about what it meant by the fact that it says The Occupiers in terms of whether I can ignore it as they obviously have no idea who lives here or who I am or whether I should make an attempt to contact them to tell them their mistake but i dont want them to end up knowing my name and then using that on future letters!

bristol_pilot

hayley_85 wrote: »

To be honest i can't remember if I did but I'm sure its something I would have done. If I call British Gas would they be able to tell me what period this bill relates to and if I called them with a meter reading when we moved in do you think?

Yes, worth calling and asking. They are only incompetent, not dishonest.

Bunnie1982

You can request to see a copy of the final bill if you like and that should show what period it relates to. Also they should be able to verbally confirm this.

Like I said before they have addressed it to the Occupier because they haven't got a clue who the debt is for, basically they are fishing for information and trying to scare you (the current occupier) into paying.

I used to work chasing these old British Gas "occupier" debts and in all fairness 99% of the time it didn't relate to the current occupier of the property and there was not much chance of tracking down previous occupiers.

Bunnie1982

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Sorry but this is incorrect. You are liable and can be chased for bills addressed to The Occupier.

Things must have changed then, when I worked chasing these debts we were told by our managers that they were unenforceable unless we had an actual name as court documents and CCJ's etc. can't be issued against just "The Occupier"