Please Help: Landlord not paying utilities

brewerdave

OP hasn't been back on since the first post;could it be that they have read their tenancy agreement & found out that they should have set up Gas and Elec. accounts??
As macman says,can't believe anyone in their right mind would include utilities in rent for 7 students!!!!! Endless hot water,electric fires on full all day.............

macman

Unless their leccy and phone have already been cut off...

undaunted

If its correct that tenancy states bills are included & he isn't handing the money over to Npower I would have thought that constituted a fraud.

I would go with contacting the Council and start looking for another house as this doesn't sound like a landlord you need to me

chanz4

for once undaunted I agree with you

mazy_m

My LL did this to me at first we were students and it was all going fine for a year then we signed another contract about a month later the LLs assistant ( he owned a dentist practice) rang me up and said I needed to come in and discuss some issues I figured this was to do with me no longer being a student and I informed them I was aware i'd have to start paying countil tax at the end of the converstation she said on yeah and you need to deal with this and handed me an envelope.

Inside it was a bill for the water rates for the entire time we'd been there. As far as I was aware they were meant to be paying the water. I checked and sure enough it said the LL was to pay it so I showed them this on the tenancy agreement she tried to lie and say oh that was the old one the new one is different don't worry i've informed the water board.

THe water company then started sending me (out of the 3 other people there) demands. I was livid that the LL could have done this and put my name on this without my permission and I knew the tenancy agreements were EXACTLY the same as I checked it all when I signed again. I'd misplaced the newer one and they kept fobbing me off about showing it to me and actually gave me something that wasn't the tenancy agreement at all.

More fool them all I had to do was find it luckily and send it off to the water board and direct them to the bit about the LL being liable for it and I complained about the fact they could put it into my name solely without any proof.

They sent me a letter back saying they'd taken my name off the account and would pursue the LL for it.

After this the LL became the LL from hell so I had no choice but to move out!

So when you find the tenancy OP just send it to the companies involved clarifying who is liable.

Terrylw1

That's exactly why utility practice should be monitored more strictly Mazy_M.

If you call a supplier saying you have moved in or out, they will just do it. This has always led to problems as no proof is involved. In the case of new builds and lettings, agents often write in. I don't think verbal change of tenancy should occur anymore, proof or something proving they have moved in would be better such as via the letting agents with agreements or occupiers in the same way.

In your case, the person at the water utility that handled this did it badly. They should have asked for proof which the LL could not provide hence tgy could have just dumped it easily on the LL.

Its amazing how a LL is trusted but the tenants have to send in agreements to disprove the LL's verbal statement.

I hope they compensated you!

mazy_m

Thanks Terry yes it's crazy that the LL are trusted and the tenants aren't luckily I had my tenancy agreement to prove it but if I hadn't then I would have been a lot worse off.

Hmm the only compensation I received was the letter stating they took my name off and they were "sorry" to have caused me distress!! Oh well it only cost me a couple of pound in stamps...it was a few years ago now...luckily it wasn't this year with the stamp increase ! lol!

chanz4

I dont trust any landlord in my work, in fact I make the jump through hoops proving that it was a rental and who they are.

Terrylw1

chanz4 wrote: »

I dont trust any landlord in my work, in fact I make the jump through hoops proving that it was a rental and who they are.

I think a lot of collections staff in a suppliers would hopefully have the same approach as you given the mess and grief changing it wrong can make.

Suppliers outside of collections make it far too easy to get names/liability changed.

I know now that with the advent of SAP and more modern thinking, lettings agents and landlords can even be stored with contact data on tenants account so they can auto set up I between accounts to stop some of the mess and force the landlord to have an interest or face collection activity.

chanz4

Proof of landlords insurance, l/reg docs and proof of home address min. L/lords do provide false docs