Student Tenant never received/paid water bill HELP

ryuuoo

please delete thread

Cardew

As I understand it you have not received anything to do with water for two years?


For 'Bailiffs' to call there must have been a court order; I suspect they were from a Debt Collection Agency(DCA). That said, some of the DCA collectors imply they are bailiffs.


I assume you are not metered?


If you are not getting bills, how do you know the landlord is not paying? Or told the water company the house is unoccupied?


Does your rental agreement say anything about payment of water bills? In the absence of anything to the contrary, it is normally the tenant that is responsible for water bills.


Some landlords want to keep the bills in their name as they can claim for the outgoings as expenses, whilst getting the cash from the tenants. Also putting a new name on the water account gives Thames Water the opportunity to fit a meter(assuming one is not already fitted)

ryuuoo

Thanks for your reply.
No, as far as we know, we are not metered and if we are we have no idea where the meter is... so probably we aren't.

Thats is correct. We haven't received anything to do with water in my name ever, not even since the Debt Collectors came and asked for my name to tell Thames Water we had moved in.

We have, though, received two or maybe three letters form Thames Water in the Landlord's name but they were just offers for plumbing improvements and things like that. Never a statement or anything concrete. Because of this, we 'assume' there is an account open for the house with Thames Water, in the landlord's name, and he's probably paying it because otherwise we would be getting statements and debt collectors would be asking for him... (?)

Would this make sense to you?

macman

So you've never received a water bill from your LL or paid him anything for water?
As above, unless your STA states otherwise, you and your fellow tenants are jointly and severally liable for all water charges during your occupation, whether you registered for an account or not, and regardless of what your LL may have told you.
If TW are sending marketing material to the LL at the property, then that must also be the billing address, so this makes no sense, unless he's arranged online billing.

GingerBob_3

Until you sort out exactly what the situation is regarding who pays what to whom, do not, under any circumstances disclose any personal information, including names, to the scum or to TW (I assume when you mention 'bailiffs' you aren't actually referring to court-appointed bailiffs, but rather to scum).