"Deemed Contract" and Early Exit Charges

Courageous

Hi I wonder if some of you could help me?

I bought a house in mid-July which I have not yet moved into. After a week or so I set up my utilities with EDF.

Then I had a letter from NPower saying they already supplied the house and as the occupier I was by default entered into a "deemed contract".

I got in touch with them and explained the situation, and had no problem with paying for any gas + electric used from my moving in date until my EDF supply kicks in.

Now as of early September EDF have taken over the supply and meter readings have been tallied up. NPower have billed me for my usage (which is peanuts) but on top of that I have been charged £30 x2 (for each utility) as an "early exit charge". This seems a little unfair as I did not sign up for an NPower supply in the first place and only inherited it as a stop-gap.

What I want to know is do I have any right to refuse to pay this early exit charge? It seems like they have pulled a fast one on me but would like to know where I stand.

Many thanks in advance

fightyfish

that doesn't sound right - have they put the bills in your name or are they still in the name of the previous occupant? Ring Npower and see if its some simple mishap - if they check it and insist on the charges write to them clearly complaining and after 40 days you can go to the ombudsmen if they haven't sorted it to your satisfaction. check all reads are right on the final bill and pay for any energy that you've used but withold any amount under dispute until it is explained.

Terrylw1

Standard Licence Condition (SLC) 7.6 clearly states that an early termination charge must not be used in Deemed contracts.

See the supplier .PDF's in this link to Ofgem's site.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Licensing/Work/Pages/licence-conditions-consolidated.aspx

Did you agree to a non standard rate when you registered your account with them? This would then not be a Deemed contract. However, if you informed them of your intention to switch I would suggest this is a miss sale as they would have known they would have forced the early termination charges on you so should have mentioned it.

nPower

Hi Courageous,

If you can pop over your account/address details to me at [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL], I can get this looked over as this doesn't sound right at all

Thanks,

Adam

Cardew

Clearly a mistake, possibly the previous occupant was on a fixed contract with exit penalties and 'the computer' has not switched you to a deemed contract.

It would be worth checking if the kWh price NPower have charged for the little energy you have used is at their 'standard tariff' rate or a cheaper tariff.

Courageous

Thanks for all your replies and help, NPower have been in touch and it turns out the early exit charges were added to my bill in error. So a satisfactory result :-)