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Help my old landlord has stuck me with a £1444 Elec Bill
Me and my friend rented a flat for a year ending in May this year. When we moved in the electricity meter was stuck and the landlord said not to do anything, so a year went past and then we left the property. Now i get a bill for £1444 in my name and a pre-court order without any correspondence before hand.
What can i do please help
Thanks Alistair
What can i do please help
Thanks Alistair
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Comments
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1) Did you register with an elec supplier or was the bill in the landlords name?
2) If it was in his name he has the problem but may presue you for the amount.
3) If the bill was in your name you should have reported the meter problem regardless of what he said.
4) You used the power you will have to pay for it in the end.IT Consultant in the utilities industry specialising in the retail electricity market.
4 Credit Card and 1 Loan PPI claims settled for £26k, 1 rejected (Opus).0 -
If you get in bed with a snake...0
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1) Did you register with an elec supplier or was the bill in the landlords name?
When I lived in rented accommodation (twice) the letting agent insisted on doing the registering for me.3) If the bill was in your name you should have reported the meter problem regardless of what he said.
If the bill was in the OP's name they would have received several bills during the year. Perhaps it was in the OP's name but sent to the landlord?4) You used the power you will have to pay for it in the end.
But we don't know the OP used the power. The meter was stuck so we don't know the start reading.
A day after I moved into my second rented flat I got an electricity bill for £52, for about a month, ending the day before I signed the rental agreement for the flat.
It turned out that the letting agent had registered me as living there the day after the previous tenant moved out, not the day I moved in. There was over a month between the previous tenant moving out and me moving in. During that time the six flats in the block had been renovated, but as my flat was the only one without a "key meter" the workmen had been using my electricity supply for all their equipment.
Luckily BG accepted a copy of my rental agreement as proof I wasn't living in the flat at the time the electricity was used.
The funny thing was, when I confronted the letting agent about it she told me what had happened, then said "Don't worry, just pay the bill and when you leave the flat, leave a bill for £52 and we'll pay it."0 -
geordie_joe wrote: »But we don't know the OP used the power. The meter was stuck so we don't know the start reading.
The OP lived in a house for a year and used no power? I doubt it.
The tenant colluded with another tenant and the landlord to not repair a meter. He knew he would have to pay something eventually. If he wanted an accurate measuring of his frugal use the honest path was rather obvious. He took a chance and has been stung.0 -
The OP lived in a house for a year and used no power? I doubt it.
I didn't say he used no power, I said we have no way of knowing how much power he used, therefore we don't know all the power billed was used by him.The tenant colluded with another tenant and the landlord to not repair a meter.
No, the tenant was told by the landlord not to do anything about the meter. For all we know the tenant could have though the landlord was dealing with it.He knew he would have to pay something eventually.
How do you know that? Many rental FLATS (the OP didn't rent a house) come with utilities included in the rental.If he wanted an accurate measuring of his frugal use the honest path was rather obvious. He took a chance and has been stung.
Nobody said anything about "frugal use", they said they rented a flat and the landlord said not to worry about the electricity meter. The question isn't about whether someone took a chance or not, it's about working out how much of the bill rightfully belongs to them.
But then again, I'm just trying to help someone, not just lurking to put down unsuspecting people to make myself feel better, so I might be wrong.0 -
It's not that i don't want to pay anything, it just that there wasn't any date's of usage on the bill and that it was just in my name and not my flatmate. I called N power and they said the account started in march 09 and i left in may, so how can i have used £1444 worth of electricity. Plus the flat was empty from april.
The landlord got a bill and has simply passed it on to me which i'm getting it sent back to him untill they can prove i used any electricity, which they can't.0 -
You lived their for a year. You were using power. You did not report a faulty meter. They can bill you for an estimated amount. You and your flatmate are jointly and severally liable. Unless you have a contract from the landlord that states the utility bills were inclusive in what you were already paying you are liable for the entire estimate. You can claim half from your flatmate. But the supplier can pursue you for the whole amount.0
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It's not that i don't want to pay anything, it just that there wasn't any date's of usage on the bill and that it was just in my name and not my flatmate. I called N power and they said the account started in march 09 and i left in may, so how can i have used £1444 worth of electricity. Plus the flat was empty from april.
The landlord got a bill and has simply passed it on to me which i'm getting it sent back to him untill they can prove i used any electricity, which they can't.
It doesn't work like that. You were definitely a resident of the property so it is reasonable to expect you used electricity, which it is your responsibility to pay for. You should have supplied incoming and outgoing meter readings, or informed the supplier that the meter was stuck. Energy companies can quite legally estimate bills where you have failed to do this.Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️0 -
The thing is that i never signed anything with n power and by there records the contract started in march and the contract was with the landlord. He has just passed the bill to me0
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I don't know what much about it so someone may correct me but as I understand it - once you start using the energy supplied to the property you are in a contract with the supplier (unless it was agreed that there was another arangement e.g. the landlord to be responsible as mention by another poster). It doesn't matter if you have signed a contract or not.0
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