Help! £4000 gas bill!

gasworries

Hi guys, I wonder if anyone has any knowledge about gas companies and how I'd remedy a pretty scary situation!

I live in a flatshare with a few others and we recently received a huge bill from our gas company after giving them a meter reading. Here's a rough timeline of what happened.

6 years ago:
For 6 years we were paying for utilities by direct debit on a estimate basis.

2 years ago:
Our flatmate - and overall account holder (John) moved out and changed the account holder name for gas, giving the company a final meter reading. They informed him we owed £4000 as we'd been under paying, but they were going to look into this as it looked like a mistake. That was the last we heard about it so assumed it had been cleared up.

Bills in new name (Hannah) but old tenants name is also on there

2 months ago:
Gas people said we suddenly owed them 4k which they tried to charge as one Quarter's gas

Hannah called and gas company said that there had been no meter reading in 6 years and we have been underpaying all that time

1 month ago:
Gas company then tell us a guy came over to read the meter but the date given was the day after my birthday and I was in, so they 100% didn't - they haven't read the meter once in years.

Gas company then try to change bill to £500 a month to recover this outstanding cost

Now:
We have said we are not willing to pay this and they have given us 2 months to get back to them. We're not sure where to go from here. They want, essentially, 8 years of underpayment between two account holders, and it feels as though they are just as responsible for this mess-up.

Any help much appreciated - it seems unfair that we are being made to pay back a lot of money for something that isn't our fault.

StuC75

where are the bills from the last 2 years when it moved names, what are the meter readings from that time? do the bill reference numbers (for the meters) match to what is in the property?

HappyMJ

You are going to need some help from CAB to sort this out. There will be a lot of letter writing backwards and forwards and possible appealing to the ombudsman for the gas company concerned.

You'll need everything you can get from the gas company. Every single bill they have issued in your name. Over 2 years ago you may have been liable if your name was on the bill even though you took one name off the bill. You would be jointly and severally liable for that bill.

You may get some help from the back billing provisions but it depends on exactly what they were billing and why you initially ignored the £4,000 arrears 6 years ago.

How much had you been paying each month?

Cardew

Just to add to the above, you need to read 'the Backbilling Code' and see if it has any relevance to your situation.

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/energy-industry-codes/code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills.html

It is difficult to see how you can run up arrears of £4,000 - let alone in 4 years(from 6 years ago to 2 years ago) unless you were growing a 'special' plant!

It is also mandatory for meters to be inspected every 2 years.

deshepherd

Might help to have some background info to get a handle on what costs might be "reasonable".

How many people sharing? How much were you paying (per month) on basis of estimated bills?

gasworries

Thanks everyone. There are 7 of us sharing - usual monthly bill is (I believe) around about £70.

HappyMJ

gasworries wrote: »

Thanks everyone. There are 7 of us sharing - usual monthly bill is (I believe) around about £70.

£70 sounds reasonable for just gas. Is that £10 a month each? It could possibly be a bit more but £4,000 ...even divided out over 60 months would mean you have used double what has been estimated. How big and warm is the house?

Wywth

gasworries wrote: »

Thanks everyone. There are 7 of us sharing - usual monthly bill is (I believe) around about £70.

But as you said, they were estimated charges.

Look at the latest meter reading on the bill and compare it to the actual meter reading now.

I'd be surprised they had magically hiked the meter reading recently unless someone had read the meter ... but if it does vary significantly by that on the meter, provide your own meter reading and they should either bill you on that or will come out to investigate.