Previous tennant unpaid electricity bill

bootie33672

Hello everyone, just a quick one, my son has recently moved in to a rented cottage and changed provider to Npower from Scottish hydro. He has just had hydro in (while he was out working his partner was there and hydro changed the meter to a prepay card type) He has recieved a demand for approx 500 quid from hydro and they are going to take the money from him weekly.
I don't know the full story yet regarding his meter reading when he took occupancy and have yet to see the demand with regard to dates etc but I have told him not to pay anything to Scottish hydro as he is an Npower customer, am I right in telling him that.
I certainly don't wanthim to have to pay a previous tennants bill but who is liable for the arrears, the landlord, the previous tennant?
Can anyone point me (us) in the right direction with regard to letter writing and who to write to please?

Ta very much

Jon

jd87

It does sound like they are trying to claim back arrears from a previous tenant. Obviously a complete mess. Has the switch to npower completely gone through? Have npower confirmed that they are now the supplier? The point of contact needs to be npower. Your son needs to speak to them, make sure they are his supplier and get them to explain what the hell is going on. The prepay meter installation was probably all planned to happen before your son moved in and the job never got cancelled.

This isn't the letter writing stage. You need to urgently let the correct supplier know that a major mistake has happened - by phone. I don't see how your son even has a usable supply at this point in time.

yoda011087

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum.

This does sound like a mess and will no doubt take a while to sort - whichever avenue you go down.

Things to check first:

Did your son contact Scottish Hydro to advise he'd moved in and taken responsibility for the bills? Whether he was planning to stay with them or not, the current supplier must always be notified with a meter reading taken on the move-in date. This ensures Scottish Hydro allocate the debt to the previous occupier, stopping debt case follow-ups such as pre-payment meter exchanges.

First port of call is a call to Scottish Hydro explaining the problem. If they haven't been notified of a change of occupancy, they may require proof that your son has indeed taken over the bills (imagine how many people try and get out of large bills by "moving out" and getting a differently named partner to take over a fresh account).

Once they have allocated the debt correctly and taken the debt off of the meter, it can be exchanged. More than likely NPOWER will need to be involved at this point as this is where the active energy account lies.

If either company are unwilling or unable to sort this issue upon your first contact with them, you should ask to be issued with a copy of their complaints handling procedure. This ensures that you have recourse in case you need to make further contact and of course any documents you send can be photocopied and recorded also.

Let us know how you all get on, best of luck.

SwanJon

If Hydro were unaware that your son had moved in there is a good possibility that they would have blocked the move to npower.
If this is the case npower can't do anything to help - everything has to go through Hydro.

Call them with the read on the move in day - be prepared to fax proof of tenancy (and of previous tenancy).
This will allow them to create an account for your son. Check the meter - with the key in press the blue button until screen S (total bill) and then T (weekly payment) can be seen. Hydro will be able to send a message to the meter to remove the bill from the meter (although there will be some charges for the time befor the meter went in).

Once they recognise that the debt doesn't belong to your son, and have removed it from the meter then you can start on getting it swappaed back - if they are still with Hydro get them to swap it as it can take around 6 weeks to change supplier.

Good luck

bootie33672

Thanks for the advice, have passed it all on to the young lad and now waiting for his replies.