Moving out and presented with 'debt'

9623648

Hi i hope someone will be able to help me. I currently rent one of 2 rooms in a flat from a landlord. When i moved in another guy already rented the other room. We signed a joint tenancy for 6 months then moved onto a 'rolling tenancy' for the past 12 months.
When i moved in the tenant told me that he takes charge of bills and i asked for an amount that was payable by me every month. He gave me that figure (approx £80) to cover my bills contribution. All bills are solely in his name and i have paid my money into his account every month on time. Since living in the flat the bills contribution has been increased on a number of occassions and is now £150 pm (he says due to increases in gas/eectricity). I am not disputing that these charges have increased so i have always paid the requested amount.
I am due to move out of the flat at the end of the month and my flatmate is now saying that i owe £250 in utilities debt. He has supplied readings to the gas and electriciy compny (EDF) and the readings reflect a significant debt that i was unaware of.
Can someone tell me what my rights are in terms of payment? I know i have lived in the property and have used the gas/electricity (despite the flat always being freezing but that is another matter). I feel the 'set up' for bills has always been a little odd but i have always met the demands of the bills as i understood them, by paying him every month.
The Landlord has my deposit in a protection scheme so i know ultimately they have my cash (which would cover the debt), but out of principle i am annoyed that i have always kept up to date with my bill money. Also can the lanlord withhold money for bills...??.incidently the other tenant is also listed as the 'Lead Tenant' with the DPS - i understand this role is to act in the best interest of the tenants but i cannot see how he can do that when he feels i owe money.

I am not trying to get away with not paying, but my name has never been added to the bills and i have always paid what has been asked of me. it is almost as if i am 'subletting' off the other tenant (except we have a joint tenancy)....all very confusing as we are linked in no way other than living under the same roof....
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

spiro

Very difficult. What you flat mate should have been doing is ensuring that every bill was based on an actual reading and therefore was always up to date. Although even if he has done that the recent very cold winter may have thrown things out.

If I were you I would ask to see copies of all the bills since you moved in, including the final one. Add all the amounts up, divide the total by 2, deduct what you have already paid him and what is left is your outstanding amount.

If he refuses to agree to this then my stance would be 'I have paid you what you have asked for as my share of the bills, therefore anything left is down to you'.

9623648

Thank you for your advice. It is really playing on my mind. I think i may approach the CAB with the issue for their take too. I will definitely ask him for all the bills today and get back to you with what i find out. Any other opinions/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.....

inklove

spiro wrote: »

If I were you I would ask to see copies of all the bills since you moved in, including the final one. Add all the amounts up, divide the total by 2, deduct what you have already paid him and what is left is your outstanding amount.

If he refuses to agree to this then my stance would be 'I have paid you what you have asked for as my share of the bills, therefore anything left is down to you'.

That is exactly what i would do.

It is not your problem if he has not bothered to work it out right, you have paid what he demanded from you.
I sounds very much to me like he is trying to scam you.

When i was in my second year at uni i lived in a shared house, there was five of us in a six bed house the 'lead tenant' was a friend of the landlords and she had advertised at uni for house mates (that is how we all found the house let and rented the rooms)
Because she had lived there for two months already when we moved in everything was already in her name, she told us how much our rent and deposit was and how much our share of the bills would be.
Every month on time we all paid her what we owed.
But when it came to the end of the year and we where all getting ready to move out and go home for the summer we were told that we each had a final bill to pay, apparently for cancelling the phone/internet/tv/electricity/gas contract before the 12 month period, we where not happy but agreed to pay our share of the final bill as it was only fair, she worked it out and told us we each owed her £316 towards the cancellation fees.
We though that seemed outrageous and asked to see the bills, she said she had only spoken to them on the phone.
We decided to find out if that is really how much it costs to cancel contracts early. and we found out that not only did it not cost that, but that because she had lived there several months early there was no cancellation fees and it had been exactly a year since the contracts had been taken out.

So she was trying to scam us out of £316 each (£1264 all together!)

We confrunted her with this and she tried to lie and tell us we where wrong, she then told us if we did not want to pay it that was fine, she would just keep the £300 deposit we had each given her when we moved it.
(We suspect this is what she was planning all along.)

After doing some more investigating we found that she had net even paid the £1500 deposit to the landlord when she moved in (that we paid out £300 share of) because he is a friend of her parents she had not even paid a deposit!
Then we found out that the money we had been paying in rent was actually the full rent divided 4 ways not 5, the same with all of the bills, and she had been living for free as we had been paying her share of everything!!!

after confronting her with this she just laughed at us and told us she was still keeping the 'deposit' we gave her.

It took months and a lot of help from our parents but we eventually took her to court and sued her for the money she owed us.

The morel of it all, make sure you see everything, bills tenancy, agreement ext, have everything in writing and never take anyone at their word when it comes to money!
that the amout she had been charging us is rent and bills

Premier_2

You're paying £150pm?

So hopefully that is being equalled by your flatmate?

£3600 per year for a 2 bed flat when the average household energy bills (and the average household is bigger than a 2 bed flat) is only about 1/3 of that?

Hmmm....anyone smell coffee???

bye_bye_band_G

This is very similar to a situation my daughter found herself in recently.
Insist on seeing all the bills. Do your own calculations. You'd be surprised at how incorrectly people can calculate things, check his calculations.
As far as your rights go, I do know the answer as to who is liable to the energy company in this situation. The other tenant is solely liable at the moment because the bills are in his name. However, if he defaults, the energy company can add you on to the bill retrospectively if they have a copy of the joint tenancy agreement. They might get this from the tenant himself if he drops you in it, or from the landlord if he is getting demands at the property address. I know it seems harsh but that's the way it works, and if they chased you for the debt, your only redress would be to sue your flatmate in the small claims court so keep records of all money you have paid him.
Yes the landlord can keep some of your deposit back in respect of this. I'm not sure if he can actually pay it to the energy company without your agreement, but he can certainly withhold it from you until you and the other tenant have resolved it between yourselves. Your best bet is to get your deposit back quickly before the landlord realises outstanding utility bills may be an issue.

Cardew

I didn't read the OP's post that the £80 increasing to £150 a month was just for gas and electricity.

What about Council Tax?, water charges?, TV licence, Phone? Sky? etc.

Clearly £150 a month for gas and electricity is crazy - but!!!!

More information please.