Energy Debt - Previous Tennant - British Gas

chelle_bell

Thanks everyone.

Its all a bit confusing!!

He totally wants to pay off his debt (he's saving for a mortgage!)

Its just my mum being fussy I suppose, she wants everything under her name, no one wants to commit fraud or get away with anything.

Who knows what will happen....I suppose we'll find out!!

macman

chelle_bell wrote: »

Thanks everyone.

Its all a bit confusing!!

He totally wants to pay off his debt (he's saving for a mortgage!)

Its just my mum being fussy I suppose, she wants everything under her name, no one wants to commit fraud or get away with anything.

Who knows what will happen....I suppose we'll find out!!

So then he's perfectly capable of clearing the debt now and avoiding having PPM's fitted in the first place...

MillicentBystander

macman wrote: »

So then he's perfectly capable of clearing the debt now and avoiding having PPM's fitted in the first place...

Absolutely. If he's saving to buy a house with the aid of a mortgage and will be making an application in the new get tough banking regime (friends of my son were embarrassed to receive a phone call from their prospective mortgagors querying their £30/mth online spend on the national lottery and had to explain they ran a work syndicate!) it really is in his best interests to clear this debt NOW, with the money he's 'saved' for a deposit for a house.

Cardew

ValHaller wrote: »

This would be wrong - they have a record of mother paying her bills.. Effectively they are denying mother an account. They may have been doing this for years, but I doubt they have a proper legal basis other than bluff and bluster.

Surely it is a commercial decision by the Utility company, there is no 'legal basis' to compel them to effectively 'write off' a debt of the son.

Some years ago on MSE there was a thread in which someone openly recommended a similar scheme*.

Essentially his mother had run up large debts on gas/electricity/water. She 'moved out'(on paper) and the son 'moved in'(on paper) and took over accounts in his name.

* Not implying the OP's intent is fradulent

Wywth

Joyful wrote: »

The change of supply will be blocked as long as your brother lives there. They can run checks to see who lives in the property.

Would that result in the mother & son would be 'financially associated' by the credit reference agencies?

molerat

Do BG report to the CRAs ? If they do then he can kiss any prospect of a mortgage goodbye.

Wywth

chelle_bell wrote: »

...He totally wants to pay off his debt (he's saving for a mortgage!) ...

He can forget that for a while.

His credit file will be trashed already, so he may as well use the money to pay off his utility debts

chelle_bell

Theres nothing on his credit file about BG!

I had quite a large debt with Scottish Power about 7 years ago, and it never went on my credit file either, its paid off now, but at the time and still to this day nothing is on credit file. I always thought this was because energy isn't credit.

As for the mortgage situation, I should maybe have explained myself better, just because I said he's saving for a mortgage doesn't mean he has 2k in the bank loooool, he has like £20 or something rediculous, dont know how I gave the impression he has thousands, I only said he was saving for a mortgage to point out that getting a mortgage is his main goal, i think someone mentioned that he was trying to get away with his debt I responded that he isn't because he doesn't want any debt because he wants a mortgage!!!!!! He doesn't have the money to pay off this debt all at the once, only by payment plan or payment metre.

Wether he gets accepted for a mortgage is irrelevant just now, he is no where near it at all. But one has to start somewhere!!

I dont have a mortgage myself and have no interest in getting one so im a bit out of the loop, but I believe a friend of mine just got a mortgage with BoS and was declared bankrupt 6 years ago, her ex hubby left her in thousands of debt. Granted its not a fancy house she's in......but still......

ValHaller

Cardew wrote: »

Surely it is a commercial decision by the Utility company, there is no 'legal basis' to compel them to effectively 'write off' a debt of the son.

Some years ago on MSE there was a thread in which someone openly recommended a similar scheme*.

Essentially his mother had run up large debts on gas/electricity/water. She 'moved out'(on paper) and the son 'moved in'(on paper) and took over accounts in his name.

* Not implying the OP's intent is fradulent

No one, least of all me, suggested that the son's debt be written off.

For me, the distinction is in the realities involved. Mother was not the legal occupier for the last few years, so she should not be lumbered with the son's debt, Now she is back home, she is the legal occupier and as such, I would suspect that BG would be obliged to put her on a deemed contract.

Although I quite appreciate the logic of what you say, it is the kind of thing where I would really expect to see a law in place to justify not giving her a deemed contract - part of the deemed contract law would be where I would expect any such provision to be found. The fact thatthe industry regulars are not coming forward with this suggests to me that there is no such law.

I suggest that OP's mother writes to BG with a reading and a move in date and requests the deemed contract - keeping a copy and a proof of postage. This ought to present some practical difficulty to BG if they go to court for a warrant.

chelle_bell

Thank you!

The cut off date for applying to the court has been missed. We're in Scotland, the court is in England. Any correspondence should have been sent to the court already to stop the warrant.

By the looks of things he is just going to need to make an appointment for them to come and fit the metre, and take it from there, as my mother wont be home in time. I suppose its not the end of the world, its not an enormous debt, ok, its not ideal, but its not as if it isn't manageable. And once the debt is paid off the metres can go back, I suppose no one is saying its forever!

Its just a case of trying to figure out how this is going to effect him financially - I have posted another thread about the prices of these metres. He's been told it wont be any more than he pays currently, so fingers crossed. All the horror stories about them doesn't help!

Really appreciate all the constructive help we've had about this!! Thanks.