Students needs help

Highstreet54

I'm writing this on behalf of my son and his two flatmates.

Brief history - rented a 3 bed flat in Leeds where they all attended university, with £250 deposit paid to landlord.

They all left in July 2006 - having cleaned up the flat and left it in a presentable condition.

Landlord required proof from utility companies that all charges had been paid before returning deposits.

Telephone bill paid and proof provided to landlord.

Electricity bill - big problem. Landlord and/or local supplier (Yorkshire Electricity I think) changed meters after they left. One bill received on new meter for more than £800. All previous bills paid on time by one of the other flat renters (they divided up the costs between them and gave cash/cheques to the person named on the bill)

Despite reminders before they left to read the meters, I'm not sure if they (a) actually read the meters or (b) could even find them - it's a block of 8 flats.

Our problem is that despite phone calls to the company,they has so far been unable to confirm what the old meter readings were and so provide a proper bill. Without the proper bill (they are ready to pay it) they cannot prove to the landlord that all utility bills have been paid and thus get their deposits back.

Any MSE'ers with advice would be greatfully received.

Cardew

Is the bill in the name of the Landlord or the Students? If the latter they can get copies of all the bills from the Utility Company - send a recorded delivery letter; don't phone.

It is commonplace for bills to be raised these days based on (under)estimated meter readings. So even allowing that all bills were paid by the students, that doesn't rule out the possibility that a big debit balance had built up - see numerous posts on this forum - which might account for the £800 bill.

If they didn't read the meters when they left, they have seriously weakened their position.