Bills addressed to "the occupier"

guppy

Thanks for coming back and providing some more explanation legaleagle. I'm afraid I don't think your argument stands up though, and there's certainly no legal precedent for it, particularly in relation to utilities.

I don't think the consumption of utilities can be compared to parking (trespassing) on someone else's land either.

Just a couple of holes in your argument:

- Assuming there was no contract between occupier and gas company. Then surely the occupier is stealing the gas company's gas if they use it without intending to pay for it?

- All reasonable people are aware of the established custom for the supply of utilities. Surely the utility companies by custom and their actions can be considered to have unilaterally offered to supply gas to anyone that wishes to purchase it? By consuming it, the occupier is agreeing to pay for it.

Regardless of the above, I have a feeling this is probably all governed by statute anyway.

P.S. I don't think you're a troll, legaleagle. You have made a well reasoned, but entirely unconvincing argument

Terrylw1

Legaleagle, you have just proved that you have no ability to address the arguments in this forum.

Scenario (1) - the landlord has agreed that the tenant should not pay direct to a Suppier for gas & electric. Hence paid in the rent. So, it's the responsibility of the landlord to have his/her name on the bills. Someone has to be liable for charges. The Supplier had a contract in place with the landlord which your agrument agrees to. So, why can't you understand that it's the landlord totally at fault. ow else can the Supplier contact the property owner other than send a letter to the occupier if the name is unknown. Of course, the dodgy landlord may have cancelled his/her account and attempted to mess the tenant & Supplier around. I've seen that many a time and in ALL cases once the tenancy agreement was checked, a bill was sent to the landlord. No Supplier has an issue with that, as long as someone gets billed.

I notice you have completely ignored all of my posts which even include sensible examples to allow even the least experienced in this market to understand. This clearly does not include you since you can't address an example that even relates to gas & electricity.

Your example is irrelevant to this board. So, address one thats relevant to gas & electricity or I suggest you post deemed contracts on the parking notice board (sure you will find one on Google)

Your posts only serve to put customers into debt and encourage their credit rating to be affected. They will also look forward to a warrant issued by the courts as they do everday for just such an issue.

In regard to your comment on "In order to clarify, the circumstances which gave rise to the issues I described, are unlikely to affect the vast majority of people, because those people have already consented to a supply by contacting a supplier at the time they move in or out."

You have shown your total inexperience. This situation affects every homeowner and tenant as they move from one property to the next. Do you want to know why? Well let me explain it to you.

When you move into a property you need to find out your Supplier. Now, you ring MPAS don't you? Yes, but unless you are the tenant or property owner, they are not allowed to tell you due to the Data Protection Act. This is to prevent dodgy Suppliers targetting customers.

You are just attempting to try to confuse genuine people who need advice in this forum. This is clearly demonstrated by how you avoid answering any direct questions and stick to bland comments.

Any Supplier would have no trouble taking your arguments on and beating you. Ofgem would also dismiss your unrelated arguments.

Oh, and by the way...if the customer continues to stay on supply as you have remarked, why should a Supplier need to send them the same set of terms out when nothing is changing? You would also need to define at what point to you consider "deciding to stay with a Supplier" since there is no time agreed contract (they are rolling) so would the Supplier need to send new terms (1) every year (2) every month (3) every week (4) every day (5) every meter and deplete the rainforest in the process???

I would suggest politics.

legaleagle_2

Thanks to those who posted responses. The Helen Vine case serves one crucial purpose; that one has to be on notice of terms before those terms can be enforced.

The scenarios I have described may be causing some confusion so I will try to set it out a little clearer:

(1) A tenant moves into a property that has utilities already. The utility supplier is not known to the tenant. The tenant's rent included utilities.

(2) Some two years or more after this tenancy was created, a gas supplier appeared to think it was entitled to send bills and also threats of disconnection for non-payment.

(3) The tenant has agreed nothing with the supplier.

It is really quite straightforward. The tenant has no contractual liability to the supplier in these circumstances.

Certain respondents seem to get unduly excited over this issue. The point is that the law requires that a person who is going to be bound into contract, including a contract that includes terms as to payment, the charge for units, how they are calculated etc, must have notice [or knowledge of] the terms. It is not correct to say that because a supplier supplies the premises that the occupant is automatically liable for payment. She is not liable unless she agreed to the terms. As no terms were advanced to her, then she is not bound into any contract that contains those terms.

May I suggest that any person who would like to put this to a friendly solicitor would satisfy themselves of the position. Unfortunately I'm not here to justify myself, but merely to provide some insight that may help some people. I'm sorry if it does not help in your particular situation. And I'm sorry I can't provide individual help on this forum because it is not permitted. In addition I would have to examine the individual facts of each case. However, a person who contacts me privately can obtain guidance relevant to them. If that person then wishes to pursue the matter they could take the skeleton argument to a solicitor who will then pursue it.

stimpo

legaleagle wrote: »

Thanks to those who posted responses. The Helen Vine case serves one crucial purpose; that one has to be on notice of terms before those terms can be enforced.

The scenarios I have described may be causing some confusion so I will try to set it out a little clearer:

(1) A tenant moves into a property that has utilities already. The utility supplier is not known to the tenant. The tenant's rent included utilities.

(2) Some two years or more after this tenancy was created, a gas supplier appeared to think it was entitled to send bills and also threats of disconnection for non-payment.

(3) The tenant has agreed nothing with the supplier.

It is really quite straightforward. The tenant has no contractual liability to the supplier in these circumstances.

Certain respondents seem to get unduly excited over this issue. The point is that the law requires that a person who is going to be bound into contract, including a contract that includes terms as to payment, the charge for units, how they are calculated etc, must have notice [or knowledge of] the terms. It is not correct to say that because a supplier supplies the premises that the occupant is automatically liable for payment. She is not liable unless she agreed to the terms. As no terms were advanced to her, then she is not bound into any contract that contains those terms.

May I suggest that any person who would like to put this to a friendly solicitor would satisfy themselves of the position. Unfortunately I'm not here to justify myself, but merely to provide some insight that may help some people. I'm sorry if it does not help in your particular situation. And I'm sorry I can't provide individual help on this forum because it is not permitted. In addition I would have to examine the individual facts of each case. However, a person who contacts me privately can obtain guidance relevant to them. If that person then wishes to pursue the matter they could take the skeleton argument to a solicitor who will then pursue it.

They'll have a duty when theyre sat in the dark.

All they have to do if utilities are included in rent is to provide evidence of that and the power companies will chase the landlord

olly300

LegalEagles arguments lack logic.

The OP question compared to LegalEagles arguments is like comparing apples and pears.

The OP asked if they recieved bills address to "the occupier" where they were responsible for the utility bills, where they obliged to pay and all the answers on the board apart from LegalEagles clearly stated "yes".

LegalEagle then put forward arguments about a completely different situation where the tenant had a contract with the LL, where the LL was responsible for paying the utilities. Clearly the utility company has a contract with the LL not the tenant in this case, and the only obligations the tenant has:
1. is to ensure if any bills for the utilties come to that address they pass them on to the LL
2. if the utility company wants to know the name and address of the bill payer then they are to give the LL name and address.

This happened to me often when LLs use to include the water bill in my rent.

If they tenant refuses to help the utility company then the tenant deserves to be cut off as they are aiding theft.

legaleagle_2

Olly300, you have it almost exactly right. Both points (1)&(2) are perfectly reasonable. What you have come very close to is a precise distinction of the situation in legal terms. (1)&(2) whilst being reasonable are not essential.

As to you final sentence, that is perhaps not relevant. I and my colleagues have come across situations where the occupier's name was phished by the utility in order to send a bill to a named person. We have issue with that under the Data Protection Act, but alas that is another matter!

legaleagle_2

Guppy, to try to answer your question, you have to distinguish between what is law, what is custom, reasonable, fair or otherwise. We are only interested in legal fact, and so to analyse it further on the scenario I stated, then no, a person who is consuming in these circumstances is not stealing the utility.

Terrylw1, unfortunately the scenario you have stated is not the one I stated. That might account for the fact that you are proceeding on a mistaken basis. Please copy down the original scenario and work with that. I will try to provide a relevant answer to you if I can, but I can't promise to answer.

Stimpo, you are close to the correct thinking, except to say that a contract made between a landlord and a tenant is private. It may also have been verbal. If the tenant chose not to disclose a private agreement they would be entirely within their rights.

Olly300, to answer you more fully on your last sentence; the consumer would not be aiding theft. It would have to be shown that the consumer was obtaining a pecunious advantage by deception. Firstly no advantage for the tenant to receive the same supply twice, and secondly there is no deception by the consumer.

In actual fact it is closer to the mark to say that any deception in the scenario I gave is more likely to be prima facie a deception by the supplier. Certainly in the cases that have been brought to me there has been less than honest dealings.

legaleagle_2

Miserly Martin, your information concurs with ours, that where a proven liability cannot be shown, there is little chance that the supplier will be able to make a recovery.

In fact I advised Clients in similar but different situations that they had no liability to [suppliername] where they had not agreed to take or receive a supply in a sceanrio where the landlord was both the supplier & the consumer in contract already; supplying the utility to the occupier under terms agreed between them. I note that certain respondents do not seem at all clear on what you have written and further fail to make proper distinctions on the facts.

In another case a supplier sent estimated bills to "The Occupier", even though [suppliername] knew that the property was already supplied by [anothersuppliername].

It disappoints me that certain respondents in this forum incorrectly tell others that they are liable to pay bills when that cannot possibly be clear on the information the orignal poster gave.

guppy

Legaleagle,

When I mentioned custom, I mentioned it in the legal context.

You seem oblivious to the fact that terms can be implied in to a contract by custom. What could be a more established custom than that by which utility companies supply, and occupies consume, utilities?

Every reasonable person knows full well that when they move in to a new property, that they will receive a bill for the energy they consume. In contrast, every person does not know that they be consenting to have their car wheelclamped when they park on someone else's land. Hence your case is of no relevance here.

Just because the contract and its terms are implied rather than written, makes them no less binding.

As I stated before, I would be very surprised if this is not dealt with by legislation anyway, but just for fun, lets consider the common law.

Contract Law 101 (I assume you have got this far)

- Offer: An offer is implied both through custom and the actions of the gas company in leaving the supply on for the next customer.

- Acceptance: The occupier accepts the offer by making use of the supply, thus implying acceptance by their conduct. If they don't accept the offer and have no intention to pay, they are stealing.

- Intention to create binding legal relations: This is presumed outside of social arrangements. The presence of a gas meter and established custom mean there can be no doubt a contract is intended.

- Exchange of Consideration: The gas company provides gas. The customer promises to pay. If he never intended to pay, he'd be stealing.

The fact there is nothing written down is totally irrelevant. The fact the gas company are incompetent and don't issue a bill for two years is irrelevant.

Legaleagle, you seem to have a very strange idea that the law is completely rigid and that a judge would completely ignore common sense in dealing with this situation. That couldn't be further from the truth.

In judging whether a contract was formed, a judge would look firstly at the intentions of the parties. Are you still seriously maintaining that he would rule that the occupier didn't have to pay for the gas he used as the occupier wasn't aware of the pricing structure?

That would surely be a bird brained argument at best!

guppy

legaleagle wrote: »

In fact I advised Clients in similar but different situations that they had no liability to [suppliername] where they had not agreed to take or receive a supply in a sceanrio where the landlord was both the supplier & the consumer in contract already; supplying the utility to the occupier under terms agreed between them.

I can almost see your point here, assuming there was a seperate contract between landlord and tenant relating to who was responsible for bills. Perhaps where the tenant was in an HMO and only rented one room.

But; that is not really relevant to the question originally asked, and if we are talking about a tenant having exclusive occupation of a single flat or house, then I have never heard of a case where the landlord would assume responsibility for the utility bills during the tenancy.

Also, the name on the bill, "The Occupier" or otherwise is something of a red herring. If its wrong, this is unfortunate, but this does not absolve the person that consumed the gas of their responsibility to pay for it.