Gas meter not registered to my address and flat not found on register

Hele_an

Hi

I'm having real trouble with my gas meter and hoping that some help might be found on here. I've been trying to battle this with the Gas companies and my landlord for the last nine months. Sorry if this is long winded!

Some background info:

Top Floor 1 bed flat of a Victorian Conversion in London. We list it as Flat C with flats A and B on the lower floors.

Our landlord has the leasehold to Flats B and C. I believe that they have owned this leasehold for around 5 years. I have a suspicion that they brought a 2 bed flat over 2 floors and converted it to 2 one bed flats. They have recently asked us to provide details about bills to our property as they need to show them to the council. The council panning officer has also been round to photograph our flat.

Our Flat is not registered on our believed Gas meter. We have access to two gas meters which has written on the side of them B and C (relating to the appropriate flats). I called and found that there is no Flat C listed on the Gas registry and that the Meter number on our meter is actually registered to an address is Chesterfield in Derbyshire.

1. Discarding the address is Chesterfield for a moment - i'm convinced that these two Gas meters are actually for flats A and B and that a new meter was not installed when they converted the flats. I do not know if there is a separate meter in flat A - very uncommunicative neighbours I'm afraid - but it seems strange that there would be two on the 2nd floor of the building on one on the lower ground floor?


2.I have no idea how a gas meter is London can be registered to an address is Chesterfield. How do you even go about changing something like this?

3. Old tenants told the landlord that they were registered to Scottish and southern but they have no record of this or the flat. They said they spoke to a manager there about this as Flat C doesn't show up on any register when using our postcode (just the house number comes up) and that they set up a direct debit. Can i assume they had the same difficulties and lied about the supplier, therefore getting free gas for their time there?

Sorry again for long windedness and general confusion! Any help would be really appreciated as we are now getting fed up of this!

chanz4

Sounds like your landlord did the supply on th qt, if the meter is registered somewhere else it could be one of 2 things. 1. stolen meter, 2. its not a unique msn which does happen.

I would speak to national grid, if its not been done correct your l/lord maybe putting you in danager. Also if it is an ilegal connection / meter the grid will be and look at proceeding for theft of gas.

Inregards to the meter address update, this is not possible without you having an mpr

[Deleted User]

I have seen many old gas meters flogged on ebay, one bloke had a garage full of them and was getting £20-30 each for them, have even seen them on car boot sales for £3 each. When you see that a meter which should be in a house in London is now the other end of the country I would be very suspicious of it. Meter substituting is not at all uncommon to get a consdirable ammount of free gas

Hele_an

Thanks for the help so far - i have check the planning file for my property going back to 1993 and there is nothing coming up about a conversion.

I'm going to write to my landlords and explain the situation as i am going round in circles. I am not on the gas register - my meter barcode number brings up another address - i cannot change the address on the meter as i do not have an MPR - and i cannot get an MPR as i do not have a supplier as i'm not on the register! :eek:

chanz4

you wont get an mpr or supplier either, if it has not been done above board. You may not find planning also if this hasnt followed correct procedure. enter postcode in voa website is your address there

Hele_an

Thanks Chanz4 for the advice but i'm not seeing anything on the VOA website that can help me. Only thing that is a slight use is that i found out was that our flat and the one below were registered for Council Tax on the same date in 2008.

Can you point me in the right direction about what i should be looking for on there?

Thanks again

chanz4

if your flats there he has done something right, I would call national grid out and ask them to check the supply for saftey and soundness as a priority. What some landlords have been doing is getting someone to installs supplys without permission from the main.

Its better to get this sorted now, rather than let it drag as unlike normal billing they have 6 years to backdate

rogerblack

Another thing to do is to check if the meter is actually connected to your flat.
Turn all gas appliances off, and see if it stops.
Turn on some heavy load, and see if it starts again.