someone added my wifes name to the electric bill in our shared accommodation!

raf80

Hi,
not sure if this is the right section, anyway..

Background

I (& my wife) rent a room in a flat and pay our landlord once a month. The payment includes all bills (everything). My landlord rents the flat from estate agents.


Today a letter arrives addressed to my wife from an electric company. Its an electricity bill in her name.

We both certainly didnt sign her up for this

'How could this happen?' ...

I want to know if theres laws against this (signing other people up for bills!) and what should we do in correcting this and prosecuting those involved?



thanks

raf.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Nobody 'signs up'(as you put it) these days for electricity bills, i.e. nobody signs a contract.

Your 'Landlord' is the owner of the flat. It appears that the tenant is sub-letting to yourselves.

Do you have a written agreement that your 'Landlord'(i.e. the tenant) is responsible for all bills?

If a bill has come addressed to you wife, it is a fair assumption that your Landlord has not given his name to the electricity company. How they got hold of your wife's name is a matter of conjecture.

So anyone living in the flat is 'jointly and severally' responsible for paying the electricity bill. That means they will hold anyone they know who has used electricity in the flat responsible for the complete bill, and will not get involved in a third party dispute. i.e. they won't get involved in sorting out who should pay.

This situation happens many times in student houses.

If your 'Landlord' - who could well be the culprit - refuses to pay the bill and sort matters out with the electricity company, you have a problem.

You can see if the letting agent will intervene, but you may have to pay the bill and sue your 'landlord'.

raf80

The person we pay rent to has agreed to change the name to his this Monday. We will call up and do it. so lets see what happens.

Thanks for the information cardew

macman

And if he then fails to pay the bills, they may come after you or your wife as residents...
What about the other bills that he said he would cover (gas, water, council tax)? What evidence do you have that he is going to pay these either?
Nor do you have any idea if you are being overcharged or not.
This kind of agreement is fraught with hazards.

raf80

yes its not ideal macman.
I just wonder how easy it is to add a name to a bill at a particular address without security checks or documents needed to prove that person lives at that address.

any thoughts?

thanks.

duchy

Very easy

As a matter of interest was the letter from your CURRENT provider or a different one (eg a "welcome to...." letter.) Twice I've had my electricity and Gas accounts "taken" by a new provider -once in my name -once in a name unconnected to the property. I had never requested the move and I can only imagine it was switched by someone working for the utility company on a commision basis. It happens an awful lot.

Cardew

raf80 wrote: »

yes its not ideal macman.
I just wonder how easy it is to add a name to a bill at a particular address without security checks or documents needed to prove that person lives at that address.

any thoughts?

thanks.

This is an unfortunate consequence of the privatisation of the Gas and Electricity industry.

Before privatisation if you did not notify the Electricity and Gas 'Boards' that you were to occupy a property - and sign a contract - the gas and electricity was cut off, and not re-connected until you had signed with them.

Post privatisation that couldn't happen and gas and electricity is left connected, with new occupants on a legally binding 'deemed contract'.

The difficulty is that now Gas and Electricity companies have no way of knowing if the property has been re-occupied let alone the name of the new occupant.

Leaving aside how they got the OP's wifes name, she is responsible for paying the electricity bill. She has used electricity and under the deemed contract provision is liable.

How are the Electricity company to know that she isn't responsible for the bill? Are they expected to carry out a full investigation to determine if she is telling the truth and that the other tenant exists and is reponsible and not herself?

This is why companies hold all occupants 'jointly and severally' liable and refuse to get into third party disputes.

As said above, in student houses the occupants often fail to inform the companies who is in residence, and all deny that they are responsible.

We get loads of the - 'I gave my electricity money to John (who moved back to South Africa) so I am not paying' - posts; so you can understand the position of the various companies.

raf80

well the old way seems better. The new way seems open to abuse.

Also how much information do these companies have? For example, if they have the name 'John Smith' on their accounts there must be thousands of people with that name. Do companies 'manage' to get or hold N.I numbers, etc?

Will attempt to deal with this today..

thanks for the useful comments here guys.

macman

How can moving into a new home and having no power or heating be better?

How do they get hold of it? Very easily, if your wife is on the Electoral Roll at that address. Or a standard credit search.

Cardew

raf80 wrote: »

well the old way seems better. The new way seems open to abuse.

Also how much information do these companies have? For example, if they have the name 'John Smith' on their accounts there must be thousands of people with that name. Do companies 'manage' to get or hold N.I numbers, etc?

As Macman states, there is no way the old system was better - you couldn't move in on a weekend and/or might have to wait without power and gas for days.

However as you say, the system is open to abuse and is responsible for the growth of the dreaded Debt Collection Agencies, with much of their work chasing Utility company debtors.