Billed despite no contract

FourHorsemen

Hi I'm new to this, but wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem. We moved into our house nearly 20 years ago. We also own a yard and barn next door. When we moved in the electric supply to the barn already had no fuse and was sealed off by SSE & the previous owner. Whiz forward 18 years, and we suddenly got a letter yesterday from SSE, with the wrong postcode on just addressed to the previous owner threatening court action if we did not pay over £200. We thought it was a scam letter, but rang SSE (our house electric has always been supplied by another utilities company), and they said in 2013 standing charges were levied on all meters. This is despite the fact we have never had a contract with them, and have never received any notification about their intention to bill us. As a side issue last year they came to change the meter to an electronic one (unreadable due to lack of fuse, yet still the meter reader comes), they would not just remove the old one without a hefty fee as it involved digging up the concrete yard all the way up to the road. (No idea why they would have had to do this.) No one in their customer services mentioned the fact that we would be liable for a standing charge at any stage! I've looked at the Ombudsman site, and lodged a formal complaint, which is currently being looked at by their Customer Services, and sent a copy of my complaint to the Head of Customer Services too. Looking on some of the MSE forums, I found that Ofgem seems to think that as no electricity has ever been supplied to us by SSE no 'deemed contract' exists between us. However, we are thinking of moving house soon and do not want CCJs and bad credit rating against us. Fortunately, we did take out Legal Insurance with our Buildings and Contents Insurance, which would cover any false claims against us.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? All comments gratefully received.

lstar337

Would be an interesting case to test out Ofgem's "no energy used = No deemed contract" rule.

A bit of a pain for you as you are thinking of moving. On the plus side, I can't see SSE having a chance in hell of extracting any kind of money from you. Given what you have said above, they would have a hard time convincing anybody that you were liable for the standing charge.

naedanger

FourHorsemen wrote: »

Hi I'm new to this, but wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem. We moved into our house nearly 20 years ago. We also own a yard and barn next door. When we moved in the electric supply to the barn already had no fuse and was sealed off by SSE & the previous owner. Whiz forward 18 years, and we suddenly got a letter yesterday from SSE, with the wrong postcode on just addressed to the previous owner threatening court action if we did not pay over £200. We thought it was a scam letter, but rang SSE (our house electric has always been supplied by another utilities company), and they said in 2013 standing charges were levied on all meters. This is despite the fact we have never had a contract with them, and have never received any notification about their intention to bill us. As a side issue last year they came to change the meter to an electronic one (unreadable due to lack of fuse, yet still the meter reader comes), they would not just remove the old one without a hefty fee as it involved digging up the concrete yard all the way up to the road. (No idea why they would have had to do this.) No one in their customer services mentioned the fact that we would be liable for a standing charge at any stage! I've looked at the Ombudsman site, and lodged a formal complaint, which is currently being looked at by their Customer Services, and sent a copy of my complaint to the Head of Customer Services too. Looking on some of the MSE forums, I found that Ofgem seems to think that as no electricity has ever been supplied to us by SSE no 'deemed contract' exists between us. However, we are thinking of moving house soon and do not want CCJs and bad credit rating against us. Fortunately, we did take out Legal Insurance with our Buildings and Contents Insurance, which would cover any false claims against us.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? All comments gratefully received.

The question of whether a deemed contract exists if you have not used any energy seems to be unclear legally, and the regulator and suppliers have different views. Therefore your supplier may insist there is a legal deemed contract even although the regulator is of a different view.

My suggestion is if it gets to the point you are worried the dispute could damage your credit rating pay them but make clear this is under duress.

Then continue to pursue them to the Ombudsman who I very strongly suspect will take the same line as the regulator and so side with you. In fact I doubt the "supplier" will let your case get to the Ombudsman and settle before that point.

Personally I would add on an amount to my claim to cover the inconvenience they have put you to.

Cardew

Agree with the above - the computer coughs and a bill is produced.

footyguy

FourHorsemen wrote: »

Hi I'm new to this, but wondered if anyone else has had a similar problem. We moved into our house nearly 20 years ago. We also own a yard and barn next door. When we moved in the electric supply to the barn already had no fuse and was sealed off by SSE & the previous owner. Whiz forward 18 years, and we suddenly got a letter yesterday from SSE, with the wrong postcode on just addressed to the previous owner threatening court action if we did not pay over £200. We thought it was a scam letter, but rang SSE (our house electric has always been supplied by another utilities company), and they said in 2013 standing charges were levied on all meters. This is despite the fact we have never had a contract with them, and have never received any notification about their intention to bill us. As a side issue last year they came to change the meter to an electronic one (unreadable due to lack of fuse, yet still the meter reader comes), they would not just remove the old one without a hefty fee as it involved digging up the concrete yard all the way up to the road. (No idea why they would have had to do this.) No one in their customer services mentioned the fact that we would be liable for a standing charge at any stage! I've looked at the Ombudsman site, and lodged a formal complaint, which is currently being looked at by their Customer Services, and sent a copy of my complaint to the Head of Customer Services too. Looking on some of the MSE forums, I found that Ofgem seems to think that as no electricity has ever been supplied to us by SSE no 'deemed contract' exists between us. However, we are thinking of moving house soon and do not want CCJs and bad credit rating against us. Fortunately, we did take out Legal Insurance with our Buildings and Contents Insurance, which would cover any false claims against us.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this? All comments gratefully received.

Why did you open it? :huh:

You should have marked the envelope as eiether "Not Known at this address" or "Moved away (almost 20 years ago!)" and popped it back in the post - no charge

Now you've opened it, you'll have to pay to contact the supplier and tell them they have the wrong address.
(If you don't tell them, expect the debt collection activities to continue)

undaunted

It's a little more than Ofgems opinion, though as far as I'm aware (thanks to the arrogance of the Judge who decided he could save considerable time in Npower versus the vulnerable - when the defendant would have otherwise have raised this amongst many other points - whilst Npower had sought to counter by claiming that supplying the meter point alone is enough for there to be supply - even if disconnected - and therefore a deemed contract) no Judge has so far heard the argument & therefore a suitable Court Judgement confirming what constitutes supply has yet to be made.


The electricity act is however very clear - for there to be a deemed contract you must "take supply" - hence Ofgems definition of this is to consume electricity. IE


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/schedule/6/crossheading/deemed-contracts-in-certain-cases


"(2)Where—


(a)the owner or occupier of any premises takes a supply of electricity which has been conveyed to those premises by an electricity distributor;


(b)that supply is not made by an authorised supplier; and


(c)a supply of electricity so conveyed has been previously made by an electricity supplier,


the owner or occupier shall be deemed to have contracted with the appropriate supplier for the supply of electricity as from the time (“the relevant time”) when he began to take such a supply."


A supplier would have to argue successfully that contrary to Ofgems opinion supplying the meter point constitutes your taking supply in order for any such bill to be found valid. There is however a very old court case suggesting otherwise in addition to the implicit difference between taking supply and the supplier conveying electricity to a meter point shown above.




Personally I'd stand your ground on this & see whether they really want to take it to the courts rather than just spout about doing so in the hope that you'll cave in.

FourHorsemen

Dear Footyguy.
We usually wouldn't open mail addressed to previous occupant, but this clearly referred to 'The Yard' and was from SSE so assumed he wouldn't have wanted it. A previous letter to change the meter came addressed to The Occupier at our house address. We did think about sending it back, but being terrified by the words "Statutory Notice - you MUST ACT NOW" thought we had to face the problem. Particularly as they said they charge £40 just to turn up on your door and the debt will increase daily plus Legal Fees. I can tell you I haven't slept properly since, as we are honest folk who owe nobody anything, and pay all our bills promptly by Direct Debit.

FourHorsemen

Reply to Undaunted - Many thanks for that reference to the Electricity Act, and your erudite reply. It looks like we will be in for a long haul over this. The Head of SSE just replied by email and has included an account number, how she can do this when we've never had an account with them is beyond me.
SSE representative promised to ring me back this week, so will post further information in case anyone else has similar problems. Either way I suppose I should ask for itemised bill, see if it blows up their computer!

lstar337

FourHorseman, get some pictures of the supply with the fuse removed and the meter with no display (if you can safely).

You don't want SSE sneaking a fuse in while you were out.

I would be tempted to email back asking why you have been allocated an account number when the supply is nothing to do with you and has never been active.

Keep holding your ground because there is nothing SSE can do to you. I would be shocked if this ends in any other way than you receiving compensation for their incompetence.

Cardew

Many posts on MSE are from people trying to wriggle out of a valid debt. It is refreshing to have a case where you are 100% correct in refusing to pay.


I really wouldn't worry about it; just do as advised above.

lstar337

FourHorseman, keep us up to date if you don't mind.