Help! Is this legal?

Mankysteve

It's not really on for ll to stipulate who who the supplier is. You wudnt tell them to shop in one place so same goes of energy supllier. Any clause in a contract locking a tenent into a certain utility company would be unfair and the judge would laugh at you if your tried to take the tenet to court over it

As long as your credit rateing isn't in tatters then it would cost anything to switch to your choosn suppliers but to he honest you might as well leave it with whom they be changed it too and leave it up to the new tenents.

Yargo1

Mankysteve wrote: »

It's not really on for ll to stipulate who who the supplier is. You wudnt tell them to shop in one place so same goes of energy supllier. Any clause in a contract locking a tenent into a certain utility company would be unfair and the judge would laugh at you if your tried to take the tenet to court over it

As long as your credit rateing isn't in tatters then it would cost anything to switch to your choosn suppliers but to he honest you might as well leave it with whom they be changed it too and leave it up to the new tenents.

i understand what you are saying.. but if i saw a clause and still happily signed..then that is what i had agreed to.. surely?

jjlandlord

Yargo1 wrote: »

i understand what you are saying.. but if i saw a clause and still happily signed..then that is what i had agreed to.. surely?

Yes... But if the clause goes against statutes or a court decides that it is unfair it will judge that it is void.
Better keep that in mind before going legal to enforce it.

JQ.

I'm with lots of others on here - I can't understand why you need to change it back - just leave it pre-paid and get it changed into their names.

may_fair

OFT guidance on unfair terms in tenancy contracts says that a clause restricting T from changing utility suppliers is potentially unreasonable. But note that guidance is not statute, so it would be for a court to decide whether the term was enforceable or not.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/publications/publication-categories/guidance/unfair-terms-consumer/oft356

dorset_nurse

I don't see the meter being an issue at all here- just ametuer LL letting LA and T run rings around them and picking up the bill.
If I were you I would encourage them to sell or research into being a LL before trusting someone with keys to their property. If they are not in the country they are really going to have to trust someone.

Werdnal

I would leave the key meter there - annoying if you prefer not to have a pre-paid, but thats life when you let.

However, contact the utility supplier immediately and get the account changed to your/your parent's names. Some electricity companies will enforce a key meter if tenants fall behind, and increase the tariff to recover the debt. Every time the tenant then buys credit, some goes onto the meter, and the rest is paid towards their arrears. Check that this is not the case, otherwise you may be paying a higher rate to clear the tenant's debt, when they should have taken it with them.

princeofpounds

May_fair is right, the clause is very very very likely to be judged unfair (and therefore unenforceable) but only a judge would ever actually decide. Having said that, the OFT report it based on legal cousel and often on past judicial rulings so it's normally right. There are specific grounds that make something legally unfair, it's all explained in the report IIRC.

Good luck with sorting it all out, your parent will learn from the experience and move on. Key thing is get better agents, the lot you have are obviously jokers. Not because they got you a bad tenant - you can minimise the risks of that but not eliminate them - but because they clearly didn't communicate the problem and help you deal with it.