Does my Mum have to pay this Gas bill?

RGE08

Basically my Mum rents of someone. She moved in just under a year ago. After returning off holiday the boiler had shut down. She arranged for an engineer (at the expense of the Landlord) to come out and fix it. The Engineer sorted the problem but informed her the Boiler was faulty and was using 4 times more Gas than it should. My Mum informed British Gas and they sent someone out to invesitage and read the meter.

Now my Mum has a £900 Gas Bill!!! Who is liable for this? The account is in her name but the faulty boiler is obviously the Landlords.

What can be done about this? It seems very unfair!!!

llh189

Hi,

Umm this is a very tricky question the bill is in your mums name so legally she is responsible for the level of gas consumption but the boiler belongs to the landlord.

I would enquire about when the boiler was last serviced and try and come to an amicable agreement with her landlord to split the costs as it is unlikely that he'll foot the whole of the bill.

Maybe if we had more info we could help more.

How long has she been there?

Gas is billed from the meter, has she been giving meter readings, if so how frequently? Has there suddenly been a huge increase in consumption based on historical readings?

Does she pay a monthly DD, if so I guess the £900 is on top of that?

RGE08

She has been there around a year. She has never had the meter read and ONLY had it read when she called them. She was paying DD of £150 a month, now she is £900 in debit to them aswell. Im guessing yeh, there has been a massive increase in consumption given historical data.

She should of had the meter read when she moved in, she didnt but think she assumed this had already been done. She paid the £150 thinking she would be in credit at the end of it!

new_home_owner_3

Its not the landlords responsibilty to make sure the boiler is the most efficient, it sounds like to me a gas engineer as came round and fixed it and whilst fixing it he has said it could do with being changed as its not the most efficient and it uses a lot of gas.

I have a old boiler where i live now and we do use a lot of gas and i was told by a firend i would save a lot of money if i had the boiler changed.

However if gas is leaking a gas safety engineer would have to shut the gas off if it was dangerous, so i think its just a old boiler that is just less efficient.

If this is the case the landord would not have to pay a penny towards the bill.

900 pound isnt that much for a year anyway.

new_home_owner_3

RGE08 wrote: »

She has been there around a year. She has never had the meter read and ONLY had it read when she called them. She was paying DD of £150 a month, now she is £900 in debit to them aswell. Im guessing yeh, there has been a massive increase in consumption given historical data.

She should of had the meter read when she moved in, she didnt but think she assumed this had already been done. She paid the £150 thinking she would be in credit at the end of it!

the inventory should have the meter readings on when she moved in did she sign them>?

Salz

[QUOTE=new_home_owner;35712749
900 pound isnt that much for a year anyway.[/QUOTE]

Reading above she has been paying £150 DD per month, so that means for the year her bill has been £2700. That is a ridiculous sum of money unless she is renting a 30 bedroom hotel:eek:

lr1277

Has your mum had a yearly inspection of the boiler since she moved in done by a registered CORGI engineer? Won't tell you if the boiler is using too much gas because it is too old but will tell you if the boiler is safe. Landlord should pay for this as it is the landlord's boiler.

Also if your mum went through a letting agent to rent the property, they should have supplied a copy of the certificate that was less than a year old. (As a landlord I am expected to supply a certificate every time a new tenant is signed up. As an aside, I never do, because my property has no gas supply).

HTH

Wee_Willy_Harris

Salz wrote: »

Reading above she has been paying £150 DD per month, so that means for the year her bill has been £2700. That is a ridiculous sum of money unless she is renting a 30 bedroom hotel:eek:

I agree. I thought the £150 a month was VERY high, but to add another £900 a year to that is rediculously high. I have a very old boiler and would be horrified to spend even £100 a month on gas!

llh189

Like NHO says she needs to go back to the meter readings when she moved in, her first port of call on Monday is to get from them the meter readings at the end of the previous tenants tenancy.

How on earth though did she open a gas account and not be asked for readings by her provider. She most certainly would have been asked for them.

Even with a faulty boiler that level of gas consumption is huge, especially if you consider that for at least half the year most people don't have their heating on.

How big is the house?

Has she a medical condition that requires her to leave the heating on all year round?

TBH I would agree that a consumption of £2700 worth of gas over the course of a year is just ridiculous - is there more going on her than meets the eye?

moneysavingplumber

RGE08 wrote: »

Basically my Mum rents of someone. She moved in just under a year ago. After returning off holiday the boiler had shut down. She arranged for an engineer (at the expense of the Landlord) to come out and fix it. The Engineer sorted the problem but informed her the Boiler was faulty and was using 4 times more Gas than it should. My Mum informed British Gas and they sent someone out to invesitage and read the meter.

Now my Mum has a £900 Gas Bill!!! Who is liable for this? The account is in her name but the faulty boiler is obviously the Landlords.

What can be done about this? It seems very unfair!!!

It would be interesting to know how the gas engineer arrived at such a precise conclusion. The only way to ascertain this would have been to check the actual gas rate of the appliance against the specified gas rate on the data plate or in the manual. Unfortunately, most engineers (yes even Gas Safe qualified ones) struggle with the entire concept of taking gas rates and tend to rely on the unreliable practice of checking the burner pressure on the appliance itself. The fact that it was burning at four times the specified gas rate would have only caused the boiler to completely shut down if it had a specific safety device incorprated to prevent poor combustion, which would have prevented you running a massive bill as a bonus anyway.

I agree with a previous poster that something here sounds very odd.

clutton_2

The Engineer sorted the problem but informed her the Boiler was faulty and was using 4 times more Gas than it should - so why didn't she talk to the LL a year ago ?