"Deemed agreement" anyone?

michymo

I have been advised by an energy company that this "deemed agreement" term gives them the right to transfer the supply of energy to a property into my name (or indeed any provided by the people moving out it would appear) and therefore make me liable for the utilities from that date without any contact with me or consent on this matter.

Any advice?

SwanJon

Are you living there?
Are you using the utilities?
What are you contesting?

Cardew

Yes a 'deemed contract' is laid down in the Parliamentary Gas and Electricity Acts.

As soon as you move into a property and use any Gas or Electricity you have entered a legally binding Deeemed Contract with the supplier.

Of course you don't have to enter a deemed contract (or give consent as you put it) just don't use any gas and electricity from that company and arrange for a company of your choice to take over the supply. You should only have to wait a couple of months or so, and then you can move in!!!!

Before Parliament passed those Acts a Utility company could(and did) disconnect the supply from the house when the old occupants left. It wouldn't be reconnected until you went to their office(shop) and signed a contract.

Did you expect to be able to use gas and electricity and not pay?

In practice you will be put on their Standard tariff(the most expensive) and you can instigate switching immediately and leave your deemed contract with no penalty. Your options are then to switch to a cheaper tariff with the same company which will happen straight away(but usually have penalties for leaving early) or move to another company which takes a couple of months.

Believe me the present system is much much better than that imposed yesteryear!!!!

undaunted

They are (supposedly - don't expect Ofgem to do much if they don't) still required to advise you of the main terms of the contract, your alternative options etc.

As said above you can still instigate a switch elsewhere if you wish, but you will obviously have to pay the existing supplier for any energy you use in the meantime.

Personally I believe the so called "Deemed contract" is frequently abused and / or misinterpreted by the more unscrupulous energy companies & some of them seem to attempt to mislead you to believe you are bound to stay with them by raising spurious objection when you attempt that switch.

Joyful

Usually the objections raised are when new tenants do not give their info to the existing suppliers so they are not spurious.

KimYeovil

undaunted wrote: »

some of them seem to attempt to mislead you to believe you are bound to stay with them by raising spurious objection when you attempt that switch.

Such as???

undaunted

Some new neighbours moved in last year, "immediately" tried to switch the supply to their last supplier & Npower (surprise surprise) started trying to tell them they had entered into a contract with them, blah blah .....

Obviously they don't control the billing, the supplier does. It therefore took them about 4 months to get the switch through.

I would call that both a spurious & unscrupulous objection

michymo

Thanks all

SwanJon - it is the latest installment in a long and lengthy debate - see thread below

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3040680=