£750 gas/elec bill on mostly empty house [British Gas]

Milfordpropman

I need some assistance, my father owns an office building that was vacated at the beginning of October 2012 and is still empty because we have been unable to find tenants for it. The office block runs on electric storage heaters and has 6 electricity meters. British Gas are the provider, they never sent us a bill nor contacted us for payment. I contact them in February 2013 to let them know the tenants had moved on and to put the bills in my fathers name, I assumed it wdnt be a big bill as the property was empty and no electricity was being used.

They sent me a bill (using accurate meter readings) of £2342.60 this was 30.9.2012 - 23.2.2013, apparently this is a daily rate they charge when a property is out of contract. I was informed that the new contracts department should have written to him to notify him of this but they didn't.

I immediately changed provider which was 15th March 2013 and logged a complaint with the complaints department over such a huge bill when no electricity was being used. They have now given us a final bill of £10183.81 with an offer of £400 compensation for not entering us into a new contract or notifying us of the daily rate charge.

The fact that they have offered some compensation makes me think that they are accepting that they are wrong. Are there any organisations that may be able to help?

Many Thanks

Fire_Fox

Milfordpropman wrote: »

I need some assistance, my father owns an office building that was vacated at the beginning of October 2012 and is still empty because we have been unable to find tenants for it. The office block runs on electric storage heaters and has 6 electricity meters. British Gas are the provider, they never sent us a bill nor contacted us for payment. I contact them in February 2013 to let them know the tenants had moved on and to put the bills in my fathers name, I assumed it wdnt be a big bill as the property was empty and no electricity was being used.

They sent me a bill (using accurate meter readings) of £2342.60 this was 30.9.2012 - 23.2.2013, apparently this is a daily rate they charge when a property is out of contract. I was informed that the new contracts department should have written to him to notify him of this but they didn't.

I immediately changed provider which was 15th March 2013 and logged a complaint with the complaints department over such a huge bill when no electricity was being used. They have now given us a final bill of £10183.81 with an offer of £400 compensation for not entering us into a new contract or notifying us of the daily rate charge.

The fact that they have offered some compensation makes me think that they are accepting that they are wrong. Are there any organisations that may be able to help?

Many Thanks

Write a letter of complaint, go to the ombudsman if you reach stalemate or get no response. Full details of the formal complaints procedure are on each supplier's website if you Google.

Fire_Fox

stanai wrote: »

Sorry, just re-checked the older bills that I'd based by figures on - last year was £100-200 per quarter, not per month. In Nov-2012, the bill was £30 after the meter reading and subsequent bills were monthly after a tariff change.

I'd been paying online. The £750 is the final month plus the correction arising from the meter reading. I have no idea what a "normal" gas&elec bill is, since this is my first time outside of student accommodation. I don't tend to spend much time in the house, so rarely had the central heating on (except for a freezing spell in December), and electricity use was mostly just for cooking and a computer. I was expecting them to owe me money after the reading, since the estimates after November were based on two people living in the house and the usage since was just me, only there every alternate week.

Monthly bills for this year are:

[SIZE="2"]01/13	02/13	03/13	04/13	04/13
54.63	64.45	167.47	137.51	613.55[/SIZE]

with the massive final bill as a result of the meter reading.

How many of these figures are actual readings? If they are all/ most estimated they are meaningless. You would be better to compare actual usage in KWH not £££. Have you checked you are being correctly billed for the units, does your bill and your meter both say cubic metres or cubic feet?