Letting Agent has changed our gas supplier without consent

versy

Having a problem at the moment and need a bit of help.

Our tenacy for this student property started in July 2011. I rang up and sorted out gas and electricy with Swalec during this month. As far as I knew we had our gas and electricy with swalec. A few months later we recieved a letter from spark energy saying they were our new gas supplier and asking for money to be transferred to them. I thought nothing of this and thought it was company sending scam letters to get us to pay money so I left it. Today I have had a letter through saying we now owe them money for gas bill up to this date.

I checked out officially who our energy supplier for gas was and to my suprise it was Spark Energy. We had never consented to having our gas supplier changed and no-one in my student property had asked for it to be changed.

I then did a bit of a search about my LA and found a contract clause in our tenacy agreement which states that our LA/Landlord "is authorised to request that Spark Energy LTD take over the supply and set up accounts in the Tenants Names" where Spark Energy is not the current supplier.

We now owe a bill to this gas company which is almost double what we should be paying for gas at the moment because they are so over priced. I would have never changed to this company. Where do I stand?

Andy_WSM

versy wrote: »

I would have never changed to this company. Where do I stand?

You agreed to it in your contract!

Not saying it's right, but that's why it's best to read these things before you sign them!

Cardew

I am afraid you will have to pay the bill, but apply to switch now to another company.

dogshome

You are right, Spark Energy are expensive - In the normal market where you are able to compare prices via Switch sites, they would not survive, so Spark operate by giving Letting Agents a 'Bung' to move Tenants over to Spark

Ofgem the regulator, have ruled on this - The person paying the bill has the right to Switch to any supplier they wish, and if a lease is claused to favour any particular supplier, permission for the tenant to Switch to a supplier of their own choice must not be unreasonably be witheld.

Chances are that your actual landlord doesn't know what the LA is up to, so advise him/her of what is going on

Research the cost of your annual use on a Switch site, then write to the LA advising them you propose to start the Switch process to move away from Spark in 21 days time - If the LA objects insist they do so in writing and then send the whole file to Ofgem

versy

Thanks for the help guys

HalloweenJack

if you`ve still being paying swalec and in fact spark are your supplier (btw you LA gets paid for each tenant on spark) - then swalec will have all the money thats due to spark; so spark can request swalec to send them the money.

advantix

AFAIK If the Change of supplier was initiated BEFORE the start date of your tenancy then the change of supply is totally legal (even if the Change of Supply was initiated 1 day before your tenancy started) . If the Change of supply was initiated AFTER the start date of your tenancy then it is illegal and you should contact Spark and request they raise an Erroneous Transfer (ET) as you were / are the tenant at the time of request and you gave no permission for the Change of Supply. To find out the date of the transfer call Spark and request the date the transfer was initiated and the date they took over the supply (will probably be anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks between these two dates depending how the transfer was done). IF the date they initiated the transfer was AFTER your tenancy start date then you should request the ET. It doesn't matter it has been 6 months since the transfer.

I can guess who your letting agent is from what you have described and this happens all the time!

bengasman

Change your supplier today.
Read contracts before you sign them from now on.

Andy_WSM

advantix wrote: »

and you gave no permission for the Change of Supply.

They did. They signed a contract saying the supply could be changed!

MissMoneypenny

Cut and paste a new thread for this on the renting board to find out what is legal and what an estate agent can and can't do.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

Remember that anyone can just open an estate agent or letting agency as no qualifications are needed.