£1,040 electric bill for 6 months...

[Deleted User]

I need some advice on something that I have absolutely no idea about.

Myself and my boyfriend started renting a flat last September, and this was my first proper 'home' away from parents and houseshares.

[By the way, the flat is a small, two bedroom flat, with storage heaters throughout, which we used over winter.]

On moving in day, the inventory woman met me to hand over the keys, go through the flat's flaws, and do a water and electric reading (the flat is entirely electric, no gas).

She went off by herself to a cupboard in the communal hallway (one which I wasn't allowed the keycode to enter) and came back, stating she couldn't do an electric reading because their were multiple meter boxes, and she didn't know which was for our flat.

When we called up the current electric provider to tell them we've moved in, they asked for a reading. We said we were unable to provide one, and they said they would estimate the bill.

Our monthly direct debit has been £40 since we moved in (estimated), which we thought would be a good representation of our usage, but having absolutely no idea.

In March, our monthly electric bill jumped to £80 a month. We called the electric provider to state they can't just double our bill with no warning as we'd budgeted for the previous amount, and they said we needed to give them a reading.

After chasing our letting agent for a few weeks, we finally managed to get someone to come out to read the meter.

They gave us a reading. We told this to the electric provider, who then said they really needed to know the meter reading from when we first moved in. I called the letting agent, expecting them to tell me they didn't know, but they looked through their notes and told me a reading (yes, the reading they apparently couldn't provide before...)

The electric company said, based on our usage, we owe them £800. Which to me seems a ridiculous amount for a small 2 bed room flat (which houses 2 people)...

But if this is the case, that we did use £800 worth of electricity over 6 months (plus the £40 a month we'd been paying, so £1,040 overall!), I feel really annoyed that we only found out so late.

The electric company based our estimate on the previous tenant's usage - I can't understand how there can be such a huge difference.

I called up the letting agent a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to speak to the person responsible for not letting us have our meter reading at the start, and instead got a mouthful from the person I spoke to, immediately getting defensive and stating they held no liability for our electricity usage.

Which is fair enough - if we've used that much. But why weren't we told the meter reading at the start? If we'd been told the meter reading at the start, our bill would've more likely been £80-£100 a month, which we could've budgeted for from the start, rather than being left with this big lump sum.

Whilst speaking to the letting agent, they mentioned that when we moved in they'd actually written to the electric provider to tell them the meter reading (it's part of their contract apparently). I got him to send a scanned copy of this letter over to me, and we've now sent this to the electric provider to enquire as to why they'd estimated (and completely underestimated) when they were given a meter reading.

My question really is, what can I do? Is it completely our fault? Should we just hung our heads and pay up?

Or should we press the electric company for a refund on the bill considering they had the right meter reading at the start but ignored it, and underestimated, and now we have a huge bill we can't afford?

I know we're idiots for running up such a big bill - don't need the grief for it. We're both new to running a 'home' and having bills to pay, and we've learnt our lessons and have turned the storage heaters down (and now are shivering even though it's June!) but it would be great to have some advice on where we stand.

Thank you

Guest101

Fighting the bill will be difficult, but they may lower it slightly baed ont he info you've provided. They will probably stage the bill over 12 months too.

BitterAndTwisted

Where you stand is that you need to pay for the electricity you have used. Contact the supplier and make an arrangement to pay off the arrears. Be aware that if you can't come to some agreement they may choose to install a pre-payment meter to pay off the arrears and ensure you don't incur any further debt. Do not expect your landlord to be delighted with that particular outcome.

Tixy

Even if they had had an accurate meter reading on day one the electricity company would still have had to start by estimating how much you were going to use from that point onwards.

It would not be until there was a second reading taken / provided that they could have come up with an accurate bill. It sounds like that second reading didn't happen until just before you got your £800 bill.

The only way to have avoided this would be for you to have provided them with a second meter reading sooner.

As to the amount used - could easily be right, heating with electricity is always expensive even when using storage heaters.
And there is a bit of a knack for using storage heaters in the correct way to get the best heat from them from the least amount of elec.

I would say to your lettings agent that you either want access to the cupboard to read your own meter in future, or you want to arrange for someone from the agency to come out once a month to give you access so you can read the meter yourself and supply it to the elec company.
If there are several meters then I would also say they need to clearly mark the meters so you can see which one is yours.

pmlindyloo

There is some good information here, including checking your bills and arranging for a payment arrangement for arrears.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_energy_and_water_supply_e/consumer_energy_supply_e/consumer_energy_bills_e/consumer_problems_with_energy_bills_e/your_energy_bill_seems_too_high.htm

[Deleted User]

What a coincidence, exactly this happened to me today too! I got a final bill for the flat I left in April, the amount was £622 and the estimated units were an order of magnitude over my previous bills so I phoned to ask if this was a mistake, turns out they'd be underestimating my bills by a huge amount... because supposedly they couldn't acquire a meter reading. I paid by direct debit so I'd never actually read the bills they sent me, hadn't realised it was estimated.

If you look at the bills you've been sent (either through the post or via email) you should notice that they have a part that says "Estimate usage" and then underneath (or overleaf) will say something like "Please submit a meter reading for accurate usage charges, you may be charged more if these are underestimates".

Unfortunately for you the usage still happened and is still your responsibility to pay for it. If the readings had happened (or been used) then you would have paid for them at the time, so in the long run it makes no real difference. What you can do is explain that this is a large bill you can't afford to pay outright and they will set up a payment plan with you, if you can only afford £100 per month it might take a year to pay it off but under the circumstances they will be happy to do a payment plan...

Maybe chase your letting agent and explain that you made every effort to get the meter readings from them and you've incurred a bill because of their lack of effort, it's exceptionally unlikely they'll cough up some sort of "compensation" but they might if they're feeling generous!

kmmr

citricsquid wrote: »

Unfortunately for you the usage still happened and is still your responsibility to pay for it.

But isn't that the key question? Did they really use that much?

If the starting point was an estimate based on the prior estimated usage, then it's quite possible that the previous tenants were underpaying, and now OP is being forced to catch up for their own and the previous tenant(s) underpayments.

I think the onus is on the LA to PROVE that the starting meter reading was correct. If they won't let you see it, then they have a responsibility to prove to you that it is accurate. Sounds like they may not have taken a correct reading (if they said they didn't know which one it was) it seem unfair to assume it is all the OP's usage.

Carl31

When we moved into our place we received a massive bill, as our bill was both based on previous tenant usage and on a standard tariff. After some readings and movement onto a more suitable tariff we had no problem. Our original bill was also adjusted.

Op,when you moved in did you do anything with regards to utilities? Or just go with what was there?

camptownraces

OP

If the flat has storage heaters, it almost certainly has Economy 7 electricity. This means there will be two meter readings: one for daytime units (standard charge) and one for night time units (cheap units, approximately half price).

Check that there are two readings on the bill you have received. Check that the units used make sense in the way they are split between day and night. Your storage heaters should only heat up on the night time rate.

If you haven't been supplementing your heating with additional heaters at full rate in the evenings or weekends, it's surprising the bill is so high. Unless the flat is a very poorly insulated conversion. Did the agent show you an EPC when you moved in?

Can you tell us how many Kilowatt hours were used (a) day time, and (b) night time over the last six months?

It is not known for electricity suppliers to get these readings reversed, and if you think this is possible, you should challenge the electricity company to come and check the meter.

camptownraces

Sorry, last post should have read "it is not unknown for ...." It does happen.

C

lvm

Only mentioning this due to previous experience working for one of the worst letting agencies...

Is there any chance that there was a considerable gap between your tenancy and previous tenancy? Is there any way you can get final read from previous tenancy and see if they've just re-used this one? (Not sure about this due to data protection though).

In old job, cleaning company would go in, do inventory and log meter readings. Even if next tenants didn't move in til months later, we'd still use this reading. If heating is on a timer, I can only imagine what this would do to your bills!

Anyway, if they couldn't get a read while you were there, there's every chance they've done this...