Received a bill, but I wasn't living there at the time

Mrs_Arcanum

A salutary lesson in ensuring you remove your name from regular bills when you move out of anywhere, no matter how long for.

MissSarah

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi MissSarah

As spiro says, if the bill has your name on it and is for the period whilst you were responsible for the property (whether living there or not), I'm afraid we'll continue to ask you for payment.

Where there's a dispute over responsibility, we do ask for a Tenancy Agreement to prove/disprove this.

If you've never seen the bill in question, please let us know and we'll be happy to send you a copy.

What should happen when responsibility changes hands is for one account to be closed down on the date of the change and another opened for usage going forward.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

Hi, thank you for your response. I've never seen the bill before so I am not aware whether it's in my name or not. The DCA letter was addressed to me, but I'm not aware of any bill. Furthermore I've never put the E.ON bills in my name. I know that the Landlord was meant to have changed the bill to my housemate's name, but whether this was done or not is unclear.

MissSarah

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

A salutary lesson in ensuring you remove your name from regular bills when you move out of anywhere, no matter how long for.

Thank you for your response. However the bill wasn't in my name to begin with.

MissSarah

macman wrote: »

You are jointly and severally liable. If it's you they come after and locate first, then it's you that they'll seek the full amount from. Any third party dispute (with landlord, other tenant) is of no concern to them whatsoever.

Thank you for your response. I am currently disputing liability with LCS and E.ON.

zerog

It doesn't really matter if the bill was in your name. If you are on the tenancy agreement, and it says that you are responsible for the bills, then you need to pay or get the other tenant to pay.

The lesson is that if you are not living in a property, do not have your name on the tenancy agreement!

MissSarah

zerog wrote: »

It doesn't really matter if the bill was in your name. If you are on the tenancy agreement, and it says that you are responsible for the bills, then you need to pay or get the other tenant to pay.

The lesson is that if you are not living in a property, do not have your name on the tenancy agreement!

Hi, thank you for your response. With regards to the tenancy agreement, it was for six months and something I could not get out of. Fortunately with regards to the debt I have some legal help now which seems to be going well.

undaunted

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi MissSarah

As spiro says, if the bill has your name on it and is for the period whilst you were responsible for the property (whether living there or not), I'm afraid we'll continue to ask you for payment.

Where there's a dispute over responsibility, we do ask for a Tenancy Agreement to prove/disprove this.

If you've never seen the bill in question, please let us know and we'll be happy to send you a copy.

What should happen when responsibility changes hands is for one account to be closed down on the date of the change and another opened for usage going forward.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

They may ask you but it doesn't mean you have to agree!

Personally if I were in your situation I would be happy to take responsibility for a fair proportion of bills whilst you were there. I would not be willing to pay for energy used when you can prove you were not living them. Let them either chase the other parties or take it to the courts.

Nor would I agree to pay any admin charges raised by some debt collector or prove anything to them whatsoever. Your contract is with the supplier, they are the only ones you need discuss this matter with (unless they want to put it in front of a Judge). You are perfectly within your rights to refuse to deal with any irrelevant third parties.

MissSarah

undaunted wrote: »

They may ask you but it doesn't mean you have to agree!

Personally if I were in your situation I would be happy to take responsibility for a fair proportion of bills whilst you were there. I would not be willing to pay for energy used when you can prove you were not living them. Let them either chase the other parties or take it to the courts.

Nor would I agree to pay any admin charges raised by some debt collector or prove anything to them whatsoever. Your contract is with the supplier, they are the only ones you need discuss this matter with (unless they want to put it in front of a Judge). You are perfectly within your rights to refuse to deal with any irrelevant third parties.

Thank you for your response. I have paid all the utility bills for the time I was living there. So as far as I was concerned it was all settled in that respect. I can prove that I wasn't living in the property from the time they specified on the letter I received.

I'm not intending to pay the admin fees either, especially considering I have received no previous correspondence apart from this letter, and I was not aware of the debt until now. I did make the mistake of phoning LCS this morning though simply to tell them I wasn't living at the property at the times they specified.

MissSarah

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi MissSarah

As spiro says, if the bill has your name on it and is for the period whilst you were responsible for the property (whether living there or not), I'm afraid we'll continue to ask you for payment.

Where there's a dispute over responsibility, we do ask for a Tenancy Agreement to prove/disprove this.

If you've never seen the bill in question, please let us know and we'll be happy to send you a copy.

What should happen when responsibility changes hands is for one account to be closed down on the date of the change and another opened for usage going forward.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

Hi Malc, once again thank you for your response, however there are a few things I would like to query with you.

You said you do ask for a Tenancy Agreement, and indeed, LCS back up this claim and told me that E.ON would only accept a Tenancy Agreement to be able to disprove liability.

However, upon receiving legal advice, I was advised that a Tenancy Agreement is not the sole requirement for disproving liability, and that other documents would be accepted (documents that both E.ON and LCS fail to mention). In the end it would be up to the Courts to decide whether or not they are satisfied with the evidence put before them, whether that be a Tenancy Agreement or otherwise.

On a different note, LCS sent me the bill. Upon looking at it, it has my name on but was not addressed to me. So E.ON have passed on an unpaid bill to the DCA without first ensuring that the bill in question went to the people who were supposed to pay it. It seems to me as though E.ON knew it was the other tenant's bill (because E.ON sent the invoice to his address) and then when he didn't pay it decided to chase me for the money.

macman

Why are you paying a solicitor to do this basic stuff for you-assuming about £300 a hour, it'll probably cost you more than paying the debt!