Broken Electric Meter

beardedscitt

Dear all,

First time on here and wondered if you could help.

I moved into a Rental Property in Dec 2015 and have just moved out as i have finally found somewhere to buy.

Holding my hands up - it appears that i never set up a direct debit or contacted the Electric Company when i moved in. This is my fault and and was an oversight.

The Letting Agency have done a check out report and have mentioned that the meter reading is the same as what they took when we moved into the property. Therefore it seems to be faulty.

Given the above, what do i do? Im aware and rightly so liable to pay the electric whilst in the property but if the meter is faulty then how do they give a figure that im liable for? We do not get gas as we have an oil tank, and this for my heating.

I have not contacted either the Landlord nor Scotish Power who supply the electric to the rental, and wondering if anyone has any thoughts?

insanegloss

First of all you need to contact them and inform them of the move, secondly its your choice how you want to play it. You need to get a new meter, thats a given, however if you want to pay a figure thats roughly right by taking reads over 1-2 weeks and extrapolating this back for the period the you moved in until the meter was changed that's what the Scottish Power want you to do.

However, you have the option of simply paying for the energy the meter shows you've used, i.e. zero. This is perfectly legal as meter readings are prima facie (fancy legalese for saying its evidence in itself, unless shown otherwise). There isn't much that scottish power can do about it, but depends on ones morals and only you can answer that.

[Deleted User]

The odds are that the meter has been bypassed under the lower cover where the wires enter.Do not touch that screw that holds that cover on, it could be live. Meter fiddling is so common nowadays especially when virtually nothing is done about this criminal offence even when they find them. The suppliers have brought this on themselves by their inability to prosecute these thieves.
You will be charged an estimated amount.The suppliers err on the your side in cases like this