British Gas didn't bill for 7 years.....

Axelfm

Hi, and HELP!

We moved into a new build home 2006 and believed we were on 'dual fuel' with EDF. We then had EDF contacting us asking if wanted to take out a gas supply with them, to which we told them we thought we already had. We then contacted 'Who Supplies Me' who advised us they couldn't find our meter number. We contacted The Citizens Advise Bureau who further advised us that unless we contacted every gas supplier we should wait until our supplier actually came forward. Time went by and still no bills.

Over the years had door canvassers at the door offering cheaper energy bills, they couldn't find out who supplied us with gas either.

Last year we received a bill from British Gas, for £7,000, we've argued and argued with them over the months over this, and now they are threatening us with putting in a pre-paid meter in. It turns out that they hadn't billed either us or the housebuilder for the gas, they 'just forgot'......

Where do we stand on this? CAB tells us they can't chase us for the whole bill and that an 'estimate' of one year gas use only is all they can bill us for. British Gas basically laughed at us when we passed this information on to them, and then sent out an exceptionally arrogant, rude and intimidating debt collector to see us.

We are at the end of our tether over this and and words of advise and wisdom would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks.

A

dogshome

There are two things on your side.
1) BG cannot make demands any for payment on anything over 6 years old - This is a matter of Law

2)There is an agreement in the Gas/Elec supply industry whereby a supplier who has failed to issue bills for over a year, cannot bill for anything older than 12 months prior to the date thay did manage to issue a bill

BUT there are conditions the customer should have met to be able to claim this Back-billing relief
They should have contacted the supplier to register their ocupancy when moving in, and, made contact with the supplier to chase up bills when they failed to arrive.

Though you failed to meet these conditions, I think you still have a good case.
Your experiences with EDF and other suppliers, shows that BG failed to register their interest with the Central Agency that records the location, number and supplier of every Gas Meter in the land - It is a must-do duty that all Utility suppliers inform the Agency, and if BG had complied with the rules there would be no problem because as soon as you or any other supplier contacted the Agency, all the correct information would have been available

WRITE to BG heading the letter Complaint, claiming relief under the "12 month back-billing agreement" and demanding that if they think it should not apply, that they give you their reasons in writeing
ALSO Take all the paperwork and history of your dealings with BG, to your local CAB office- (Since your saga started, the CAB have become an official route for Utility Co. complainants )

Cardew

Agree with the above.

The crucial point, as stated above, is(or was) this provision of the Billing Code.

Have been using the gas or electricity supply but have made no attempt to contact the supplier to arrange payment. This includes moving into a
property and making no attempt to let a supplier know you are the new tenant or homeowner;

It will help if you have some paper correspondence on your attempts to find out your supplier.

However it appears from your reference to a 'debt collector' visiting you that matters have progressed past the point of arguing about if the back-billing code applies.

The DCA(Debt Collecting Agency) will not be the slightest bit interested in the back-billing code - and it is a code; not a regulation.

You need to get BG to call off the DCA bloodhounds and try to get the discussion on back-billing re-opened.

ampafc

You got free gas for several years, and realised you were getting free gas through this period. You should have been putting money away in a savings account each month that you would have expected to pay for a gas bill, as surely knew one day you would have to pay up.

We all have to pay for our gas, and so should you. Sorry if this sounds harsh - is just my opinion.

I can only suggest that you try to agree a fair repayment plan with them.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

ampafc wrote: »

You got free gas for several years, and realised you were getting free gas through this period. You should have been putting money away in a savings account each month that you would have expected to pay for a gas bill, as surely knew one day you would have to pay up.

We all have to pay for our gas, and so should you. Sorry if this sounds harsh - is just my opinion.

I can only suggest that you try to agree a fair repayment plan with them.

Morally, you have a point, the OP clearly knew they weren't paying and kept it quiet.

However, the back billing code clearly states that if the enegy supplier makes no effort to bill, then the consumer is only liable for 12 months. There's no way they owe £7k.

Cardew

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

Morally, you have a point, the OP clearly knew they weren't paying and kept it quiet.

However, the back billing code clearly states that if the enegy supplier makes no effort to bill, then the consumer is only liable for 12 months. There's no way they owe £7k.

However as stated in my post above, there is the caveat that the customer when moving in must make attempts to determine who is supplying the gas and contact the supplier.


Given it was a new-build house and the OP was first occupant an enquiry to neighbouring properties(assuming it wasn't the sole new build house) would have determined who supplied gas.


If there is written evidence of those attempts then he has a chance; however IMO a couple of phone calls would not suffice.


As the OP states the OP and BG have argued about the £7,000 bill for months and BG have passed the bill to a DCA.


If the DCA do take the matter to court(and they might for £7,000), IMO the OP doesn't stand a chance. They clearly knew they were not paying for gas. The back-billing provision is in a code(not a regulation) and presumably BG felt it didn't apply when arguing for months about the bill.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Apologies, I clearly misread the original post. I thought they had actually contacted every supplier, when it would appear they just thought about it!

Axelfm

Just to make it clear: we didn't 'keep quiet' about it, we actually tried to ascertain who our supplier was but our meter wasn't registered. On advise, we were told to sit and wait until a supplier contacted us, we were also advised, correctly as it seems now, that any supplier who hadn't billed us couldn't then try to back date our bills from the date we moved in.

The first bill we actually received from British Gas was actually addressed to the house builders, upon receiving this it was us who then got in touch with them to explain matters, they then resent the bill out in our name, and from there haven't wanted to resolve this matter due to their failure to bill us.

Many, thanks for the positive advise and guidance, much appreciated.

dogshome

The Win/Lose decision on Back-billing relief, hangs on the negotiations the OP had with EDF when they first moved in.

According to the post, the the OP registered for both Gas & Elec with EDF when they first moved in, and it's a fair assumption that indeed EDF were the 'existing' Electricity supplier to the house. (Otherwise the OP would have quickly found themselves getting bills from two Elec suppliers.)

To the OP's surprise as they thought EDF were supplying both Gas & Elec, EDF asked to be the gas supplier and the OP agreed they should.
It was only when EDF reported back that they could not do so because the meter didn't exist on the National Data Base, that the OP realised there was a problem

The OP tried to resolve the problem, only to be told that "The meter doesn't exist" - With hindsight the CAB's advice wasn't the best, but was all the OP could get

There is a mountain of evidence of BG not following the system, and the proof of that is the Conversations/Correspondance/phone calls with EDF
Axlfm urgently needs to contact EDF, explain the problem and ask for any records EDF have of the negotiations

jobdone1

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

Apologies, I clearly misread the original post. I thought they had actually contacted every supplier, when it would appear they just thought about it!

Turning a blind eye springs to mind:p