Southern Electric debt threat - advice?!

Jopster

Hi All,

Totally new to posting in a forum but I've seen how helpful people can be from previous posts so hoping for some advice!

My boyfriend and I rented a flat in a converted Victorian terraced house in May this year. In the tenancy agreement we were told that the supplier for Gas & Electricity was British Gas and should we want to change suppliers we must notify the landlord in writing so he was aware of the new supplier. As it is I'm not too savvy about changing suppliers and so decided to stick with BG for the time being.

Last Tuesday I noticed a letter by the front door hand written and hand delivered to 'The Occupier' of our flat. I opened it thinking it might be from the landlord as we were waiting for contact about a leak in the ceiling. It was from Southern Electric claiming that we owed them money for an electricity debt to our flat and saying the visit had cost us £33 and court orders were being put in place to pursue further action against us. I called Southern Electric to say it had nothing to do with us and they confirmed the landlord's name was on the account. I said they needed to contact him and stop sending debt collectors round, to which they agreed. I also called the landlord to inform him of the letter which he was not overly concerned about and said he thought he had some paperwork somewhere and a cheque that needed sending.

Friday night = another debt collection letter hand delivered again from Southern Electric. This time I left a message on the answerphone of the mobile number on the bottom of the letter saying again that it was nothing to do with us and to pursue the landlord.

I heard nothing back and given that the second letter claimed they would come in and cut off our electricity supply I decided to call again this morning just to be sure he would get lost. Unfortunately he would not. He told me that Southern Electric were the electricity suppliers to our property and that British Gas had acted wrongly and 'stolen' the supply from them and were wrongly taking money from me. I argued that I knew nothing about Southern Electric and that my tenancy agreement stated British Gas were the suppliers so I had done nothing wrong in responding to their initial letter welcoming me as a new customer. He refused to contact the landlord despite me saying it wasn't my debt and insisted it was up to me to sort it out. I said I wouldn't and he'd better call the landlord as I wasn't paying the bill or doing anything about the account that wasn't in my name, and also that the landlord had mentioned paying the bill last week anyway. He called the landlord.

I then called the landlord to complain about the leaky ceiling (AGAIN) and brought up the second letter. He said he'd told the debt collector that he hadn't set up the account and wanted copies of the invoices as he didn't know anything about the electricity bill with Southern Electric. So I am confused as to what he thought I was talking about last week, perhaps the outstanding BG bill for our flat for the month prior to our moving in? - He's not overly bright from previous experience of correspondence nor requests to fix things. He said the bill went back to last August and was for over 300. He doesn't want to pay it either.

So I'm thinking that this bill is not my problem and it's in his name but I am still going to send a recorded delivery letter stating it's not my debt and my supplier is BG and I never had any correspondence with Southern Electric prior to this. (My Dad has advised this to put me in the clear in writing.) My main worry is that British Gas have the same meter number on my bill as the one SE gave me and as there are 5 meters in the hall cupboard I wonder if I somehow got the wrong one despite a '2nd floor' notice in black marker pen scrawled on the one I think is mine. I have someone calling me back from BG tonight to check the serial number on the meter with me to confirm either way.

SE claim that even if the debt is not mine I have to fax them a copy of my tenancy agreement and open an account with them through the home movers dept and then close my BG account and have them repay the money the claim BG took under false pretences and pay it to SE.

My brain hurts just thinking about this but I have no clue what to do. Have looked at Energy Watch website but couldn't find anything directly related to this, I thought if I start up a contract with a supplier who was already supplying the previous tenant (and the landlord in the interim) then I didn't do anything wrong? I don't want to switch to SE!

This has become a long and tedious post, apologies, and I may have missed some details out but if anyone knows the legalities of Electricity/Gas supply please advise?! Thanks in advance!

seafarers_wife

ok what seems to have happend is an erroneous transfer, basically british gas took over by accident and the supply was xfered back to southern electric as if nothing had ever happened.

first thing i would do is get the start meter reads that were taken at the very start of your tennancy then take meter reads now and all details off your meter.

you need to phone british gas whom you think you have an account with, you need to clarify with them what has happened. i assume when you moved in you set up an account in your name with bgas, if so and an erroneous xfer has been done they will refund all monies to you so it will be as if they never had anything do to with you.

then you need to call southern electric. set up an account in your name from the date you moved in with the meter reads that you took when the tenancy started, then you need to pay them whatever is owed. the money from british gas should cover this.

then you need to swich from their standard tarriff to one with them that saves you money and then shop around for the best supplier and tarriff for yourself be it eon, npower, edf etc.

Jopster

Thanks for your reply!

Thinking more about the erroneous transfer I'm wondering - as the landlord has no clue why Southern Electric are supplying the premises as he set up with British Gas- how far back we would be able to go to prove whether SE stole it from BG last August (when the bill dates back to) or whether they would be able to prove the tenant who may have changed it legitimately moved suppliers.

I have a feeling this is going to be a long, tedious, draw-out process. :mad:

Joyful

When you say converted was this into more than 1 flat? If so British gas can check the industry system to see how many Meter point numbers there are for the whole property. They will also be able to see the date each supplier started supplying so I would hold off doing anything until you have this information.

PNPSUKNET

If their is several flats but onyl one meter, your landlord will be liable no matter whats in the tennancy. As it would be classed as a MOP.

Jopster

British Gas have checked the meter points against the meter number I gave and we have something called a 'related supply' where two meter points supply the same meter for one flat. At some point both supply points were supposed to be swapped from N Power to Southern Electric but they only took one meter point and the other has swapped back and forth between N Power and Brit Gas for the past few years up until last year when it has been with BG and no-one had a clue this had happened. We won't owe Southern Electric as we have paid British Gas in good faith, however as we need a special tariff called Best Fit Tariff we can't stay with BG as theirs is expensive. So Southern Electric now need to take on both supply points and we go from there. Arrrgghhh how totally totally annoying!

PNPSUKNET

take it you have either heat units or 3 phase