being put on a business tariff for gas

Plucky

We moved in to our new house around 3 months ago, and were never informed by our landlord who our energy suppliers were. when we received our first statement, we discovered that our landlord had placed our names on the existing energy account, and that this account was set up with CNG (cngltd.co.uk) for our gas and with OPUS (opusenergy.com) for our electric. after reading that for 2.5 months, our gas was going to cost us £700 (and that is while the gas is on for around 2-3 hours a day) and our electric was going to cost something equally as horrific, we discovered that these energy suppliers our landlord had given our names to are actually BUSINESS suppliers! the cheek. after checking out their websites, we discovered that to even set up an account you need to supply a business name as a mandatory field.

now, seeing as we are in no way affiliated with our landlord's business he was running from our property before we moved in, are we obligated to pay these outlandish bills? I'm fairly sure that as we wouldn't qualify to take out an account with these business suppliers, then it shouldn't be possible for our names to be put on a business contract. my housemates are not so sure, so I was hoping for some support or advice from some of the more knowledgeable forumites on here!

has anyone else been absolutely shafted like this before? what happened?

dogshome

Hi Plucky - Commercial Utilty supply contracts are a mine field, but depending on the legal identity of the customer who signed up for one, they can only be enforced on the Signee - Your L/lords Limited Company, or perhaps him as a sole trader.

It's probable that you will have a fight on your hands as the issuers of these contracts don't let go easily.
WRITE to both suppliers pointing out that you are purely a domestic household, you are not a party to their contract, enclose copy documents showing that you have a domestic premises lease and that it is your intention to Switch your supplier to a domestic distributor - Also get your landlord, who should have sorted this out before you moved in, to provide a letter advising that your home is for domestic occupation only from the date you signed the lease

As I say these outfits don't give up without a fight, but on commercial contracts the VAT is levied at 17.5%, whilst you as a domestic customer only pay 5%. So if it gets the point that you have to pay them some money, strike out the 17.5% figure and put the VAT back in at 5%

Plucky

That's a perfect response. Brilliant! I can't thank you enough for this.