OR hasn't allowed our claim for gas & electricity

FixitM

Hello. I wondered if anyone has had similar? We are due to submit an income and expenditure form to the OR (last IPA didn't go ahead as my husband changed jobs). However the OR forwarded his calculations from last time which had a proposed IPA of £44 per month. This amount is the exact amount he hasn't allowed us for the amount we claimed for gas & electricity usage. Now not only can we not make cuts in this are (there are 5 of us and we use it for essential things like washing, washing clothes, cooking, lighting, heating), but we are also on a prepayment meter for the gas which is really expensive. This amount is also due to go up, as the utility company messed up our bills and we owe them arrears for electricity. My worry is we will have to submit the income and expenditure again, he will not allow us the amount we need to claim for gas & electricity and instead will give us an IPA with what he cuts from that. Has anyone had similar? I'm wondering can we challenge this, and are we likely to get anywhere if we do?

Thank you

Strachan

Send in copies of bills and other relevant worked out costing to OR by email and letter explaining our reasoning

TheGardener

Wouldn't any utility arrears fall in the BR anyway?

philnicandevan

TheGardener wrote: »

Wouldn't any utility arrears fall in the BR anyway?

They will indeed.....providers usually start a new account from date of bankruptcy..

FixitM

Thanks for your replies. The arrears are since bankruptcy because they massively !!!!!!ed up our account, have been trying to add on a bond of £600 for electricity & £500 for gas, fitted a prepayment meter for gas but still been demanding payment for gas & electricity. We've been trying to sort this out since September as we wanted to keep up with monthly bills, but it's been ridiculous. Now they are saying it will take another 40 days to split the accounts and just tell us what we owe them for electricity. With the gas prepayment meter we don't get bills. It's a massive mess, and been extremely frustrating & stressful trying to sort it out with them for all this time, to no avail.

I'm not sure what to do next to try and appeal it, or what to do? I can't see any way we can reduce it, as we're stuck on the most expensive tariff due to BR. For example I've had to do 4 loads of washing today, but that's the norm at weekend with 3 young children. The OR hasn't been particularly helpful, threatening us with court if we don't agree to the IPA. Just seems to be more stress as things go on rather than less.

Thank you.

dojoman

Have you posted your I & E on here for people to look at?

sourcrates

You should attempt to resolve this with the OR first.

If that does not bear fruit, there is a complaints procedure you can follow :

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service/about/complaints-procedure

FixitM

Hello. Thank you for your replies. We haven't posted the income and expenditure on here as we were waiting for the OR's calculations on the last one before we do it, as we thought we'd got our calculations of the last one wrong. Now we can see that it's our gas & electric payments he's not fully allowed. We put down £198 per month combined gas & electricity usage, and they have allowed £154. We spoke to the provider and our electricity usage is £99 per month and gas is £135 per month (as the prepayment meter is extortionate and costing us at least £15 per week more than when it was a standard meter). Add on to this the fact that we will also need to pay arrears on top of this because of the energy company's !!!! up with not separating the bills & getting a correct bill to us, it will be even higher. I'm wondering in these circumstances, can he still disallow it, if it's something that we need to pay? We will email him in the morning.

Thank you

StopIt

Just what is the price for kWh on these Tariffs? My god that's extortionate.


I thought my bills spiking to £90 pm was bad (Living in an old detached house with little insulation and a slightly dodgy living room radiator that is awaiting fixing).


If the billing mess up was pre-BC then surely it can be rolled into that? Aside from that is there no way you can switch because that is frankly nuts. The OR however should be helping rather than hindering you. Send proof of usage and tell them that you're not over claiming, but that's what your usage is. I'd be looking into saving energy too. That means saying goodbye to Stand-by, using every last inch of space in the washing machine and finding every last efficiency you can.

rockingbilly

FixitM wrote: »

Hello. Thank you for your replies. We haven't posted the income and expenditure on here as we were waiting for the OR's calculations on the last one before we do it, as we thought we'd got our calculations of the last one wrong. Now we can see that it's our gas & electric payments he's not fully allowed. We put down £198 per month combined gas & electricity usage, and they have allowed £154. We spoke to the provider and our electricity usage is £99 per month and gas is £135 per month (as the prepayment meter is extortionate and costing us at least £15 per week more than when it was a standard meter). Add on to this the fact that we will also need to pay arrears on top of this because of the energy company's !!!! up with not separating the bills & getting a correct bill to us, it will be even higher. I'm wondering in these circumstances, can he still disallow it, if it's something that we need to pay? We will email him in the morning.

Thank you

As these arrears have accrued post bankruptcy, you are liable for them.
The OR has a duty to ensure that what is claimed as an expense is reasonable. That will not include things such as tobacco, excessive entertaining, expensive holidays etc. They will not allow for the arrears to be included either. The way of looking at it is you (or whoever made a mistake) spent the money that you should have been using to buy fuel.
The OR is right in assessing what is an acceptable 'normal' cost but varied if you can show why you pay more for what you use.

You can't really expect your creditors to accept that they get less because you haven't paid for fuel that you have used but spent the money on other items instead post bankruptcy.

FixitM

StopIt wrote: »

Just what is the price for kWh on these Tariffs? My god that's extortionate.


I thought my bills spiking to £90 pm was bad (Living in an old detached house with little insulation and a slightly dodgy living room radiator that is awaiting fixing).


If the billing mess up was pre-BC then surely it can be rolled into that? Aside from that is there no way you can switch because that is frankly nuts. The OR however should be helping rather than hindering you. Send proof of usage and tell them that you're not over claiming, but that's what your usage is. I'd be looking into saving energy too. That means saying goodbye to Stand-by, using every last inch of space in the washing machine and finding every last efficiency you can.

Thank you for your replies. It is extortionate, we have have been shocked at the price difference between how it was on a standard meter and what it's costing us now. We live in a very old house which can't have any wall insulation, and I'm at home all day most days with my toddler, which I'm sure means we use more than the standard family. We have made cuts to using the drier, and only use it for essential things like when we need to dry uniforms or husband's work clothes quickly. We don't have lots of gadgets or appliances, and my washing machine is generally stuffed to capacity (3 kids cause a lot of washing). I just don't know where else we can make savings. He has replied anyway and said that he's allowed standard usage and if we don;t agree then we'll have to go to court.

Rockingbilly, I get what you're saying. My husband has had to change self employment 3 times since going bankrupt as he was getting paid £45 some weeks and £0 others, so the money we were trying to put aside until they sorted the billing mess out had to go on food, gas and travelling to work. We explained to him that it's more costly as it's a prepayment meter and I am home with a toddler all day, so it will be more than an average family usage. He has said if we don't agree then it will go to court. If we can't address those arrears, then I'm not sure what action the electricity company will take? Court I assume? And it's not a case of trying to avoid an IPA, as we were paying the creditors back via an IVA for 4 years. It's about the fact that we didn't even out in for anything like an emergency fund in the last income & expenditure as we felt we couldn't afford to, yet they deemed we could afford an IPA of £44 per month (which is the exact amount disallowed from our electricity and gas amount). So I assume I will just have to cut that off the gas & electricity amount and put it on elsewhere otherwise we'll have a shortfall in our bills.

He also said he's put the amount for mobile phones in with tv, broadband & telephone amount which he's limited to £60 per month in total. Does that sound right please (for family of 5)?

Thank you for your help.