Massive closing bill from Southern Electric

hippowarrior

Hi all, this is my first post, please excuse me if it rambles a bit.

My partner and I lived in a 2 bed terraced house with a housemate until recently, we paid our bills quarterly to seperate gas & electric suppliers.
They were approx what we thought they should be, gas was generally higher than electric, we only have central heating on the gas supply everything else was electric.
Our bills for electricity were coming in at about £350 for the year, we gave a meter reading in Nov 2010, the bills carried on being the same for the rest of 2011, now we have given a closing reading upon moving out they have it us with a £750 closing bill! :eek:
We called the Co and they said that the bills had been estimated through 2011 although they were based on the last reading in 2010 and should have been approx right, but the closing bill is based on the actual meter reading now (which we have double checked) and this is now what we owe, they concede that our useage has gone up A LOT, the strange thing is the night useage has been estimated correctly, but the day useage is some 3000 odd units out, based on 1 years consumption our useage has gone up from something like 6.5 units per day to 83.
Just as an overview we were 3 full time working adults with what I would call average use of appliances, our housemate worked away quite often, and we were all out a lot at weekends too, I'd say we used the cooker 5 days a week, the washer 1 day a week between us probably 4 to 5 washes. All light bulbs are energy savers, no more than 2 tv's on at a time, pc may be left downloading at night and the occasional day, always careful to turn appliances off, the only extra we had was that there were two fridges, a freezer and a small box freezer.
Does anyone have any advice on how I should now approach the Electric Co

zzzLazyDaisy

hippowarrior wrote: »

Does anyone have any advice on how I should now approach the Electric Co

This is a lesson in checking estimated readings against the meter when the bill comes in and notifying the utility provider of the correct reading.

You have been using a lot more electricity than you were paying for, thus building up a debt, which you now have to pay at today's rates, rather than settling the bill each quarter as it came in.

You owe the money and you need to pay the bill.

The best you can do is to come to some arrangement for paying it off. If you are lucky, you may be able to persuade them to discount the final bill for the inconvenience of being given inaccurate estimates (goodness knows why, but occasionally they do that). Or perhaps they will allow you to pay the bill off in installments. However, carrying a debt over like that may result in your next electricity provider insisting on pre-payment meters in your next place.

spiro

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

This is a lesson in checking estimated readings against the meter when the bill comes in and notifying the utility provider of the correct reading.

I agree this is the most important lesson to have learnt. Suppliers normally have something in their T&Cs about submitting a reading twice a year. In your case its been about 14 months between actual readings.
Hopefully you can arrange time to pay it off.

jalexa

hippowarrior wrote: »

based on 1 years consumption our useage has gone up from something like 6.5 units per day to 83.

I "don't believe that" for a gas centrally heated house. Even if there is a catch up element (and estimated bills from Southern Electric have a very clear "thumbs down" for an estimated reading) I'd be looking for billing errors unless its obvious to you that you have been topping-up your gas central heating with day-rate electricity.

Why do you have E7 and gas central heating? That would be quite difficult to make pay.

dogshome

From your post it seems that you have Gas Heating & Hotwater, and your Elec comes through an ECO7 meter !?

It's not set in stone, but an ECO7 meter in a Gas CH & HW house is not economic as the cheap Elec. overnight heating and hot water is hardly used, but you are still paying a premium for the Elec you use during the day - Best bet is to post your Annual Gas & Elec Night/Day Kwh consumptions here.

It would be worth checking that your Day/Night Elec consumptions are being billed the right way round - Boil a kettle in the middle of the day and check that the meter that records this use, is the one on which you are being charged the Day rate

hippowarrior

Thanks everyone.
I'd just like to say in my defence this was a shared & rented property, and I moved in my my OH who was already living there. Changing the suppliers was what I wanted to do but in that situation it's a matter of getting everyone to agree. Also we don't live there anymore, as I mentioned it's a closing bill, I'd appreciate help rather than a smacked wrist :-(
That aside, I hear what you're saying about estimates, however my point is that after 1st year a reading was given and the billing turned out to be more or less correct, 2nd year of billing was very similar to the 1st and after another reading being given it has apparently shot up by over £700.
In other words 2010 bills approx £350 in total,(confirmed to be OK when a reading was given) compared to £1100 in 2011. Not likely is it?

Can I put this in dispute with the supplier?

jalexa

hippowarrior wrote: »

In other words 2010 bills approx £350 in total,(confirmed to be OK when a reading was given) compared to £1100 in 2011. Not likely is it?

To take the whole of that (i.e. £350 to £1100), indeed not likely without an explanation, so what might the explanation be?

Meter readings are proof positive of consumption unless successfuly challenged as inaccurate. Now that you have moved out almost impossible to prove. The "£350" is uncharacteristically lower than the "£1100" is high. So, on the balance of probability, and as a starting argument, the problem is with the £350 not the £1100. Scrutinise your bills closely for billing error. Read between the lines of posters "slapping you on the wrist", as you see it, and there are suggestions such as transposed readings, one of the classic "billing errors". Post the actual numbers (not ££s) for more meangful help.

hippowarrior

A quick update. I eventually spoke to a helpful person at Southern Electric, she went through everything with me, they had our starting and endin figures, divied it up over the time we lived there, average cosumption was applied and the bill was right!!
They had messed up by not applying our first reading about a year after we moved in, so the estimated readings were so far out it was unreal. Apolgies were given but we are basically now stuck with the bill