Advice On Changing Supplier

bordercars

Please bear with me on this

I own a property, let to tennants with compulsive purchase disorder, he cannot say no to telesales and constantly calls companies to buy stuff, he has 4 cell phone contracts & also an internet connection and has given away his pc. so you can imagine what he has done to the power suppliers, the state of play now is, he is all electric and on economy 7, he has swapped supplier but british gas took 1 meter supply and when they went to take the second powergen refused to release ( apparently above board ) so now he has powergen supplying standard electric and british gas supplying the cheaper econ 7 but niether company is billing him, and have not done so for about 10 months, i have phoned BG they need to give him back to PGen then take the whole account PGen are up there own ar** and do not know whats going on. i spoke to the energy watchdog and whilst helpfull could not give any answers, i asked if i could put in tennancy agreement that he could not change suppliers in future but this is not allowed , freedom of choice.
so now the idea is , i take over the supply, install a coin meter which he uses and i pay the bill. question. who do i get to supply electric , i may stir up a hornets nest and get tennant huge bill and get nowhere, i just want to help him out and get 1 problem in his life sorted out, please any advice would be a great help.

sujman

It is fair that if the tenant is responsible for paying the Utility bills, then he should have the freedom to chose the supplier.

As you say, you might consider taking over the responsibility of paying the Utilities and as the account holder, be the only person who can change suppliers (although it wont necessarily stop your tenant pretending to be you). The rent bill can therefore be said to include utility costs (dunno if legally you can do this, might need a new contract signing)

As a back up measure, estinmate how much the outstanding bills are, increase your rent to the tenant accordingly (and lump the money with his security deposit), so that you are covered should he move out and not pay his share of the bills.

bordercars

sujman wrote:

It is fair that if the tenant is responsible for paying the Utility bills, then he should have the freedom to chose the supplier.

As you say, you might consider taking over the responsibility of paying the Utilities and as the account holder, be the only person who can change suppliers (although it wont necessarily stop your tenant pretending to be you). The rent bill can therefore be said to include utility costs (dunno if legally you can do this, might need a new contract signing)

As a back up measure, estinmate how much the outstanding bills are, increase your rent to the tenant accordingly (and lump the money with his security deposit), so that you are covered should he move out and not pay his share of the bills.

i agree in most circumstances the tennant should have control over supplier, in this case because of mental health problems he has got himself in a pickle
and like i said in OP he has not had a bill for 10 months and not put money aside,
rent cannot include utilities because of benefits.
if he moves which is unlikly i have tenancy agreement so i will not get caught for the bill,
just had a quote to have a coin meter fitted over £250 i cant afford that to help him out guess he will just have to sort out himself somehow