Will I be charged for last tenants fuel?

brenda50

I am moving into a let, where the last tenants did a bunk so I do not know who the last supplier was. My housing association says they do not have the last meter reading. I took it and sent it to my supplier British Gas who are taking over in the new property.

I am concerned that I will get billed since the last bill that was paid by the bunkers because no-one has officially read the meters. Any advice please?

[Deleted User]

You need to find out who supplies the property as you cannot switch to any other provider until you have notified the existing supplier and setup an account with them.
Once you have received the welcome email/letter you can then switch.
Find out the supplier https://www.ukpower.co.uk/who-supplies-my-gas-and-electricity

System

unless you are lucky then contacting British Gas to take over supply is not the correct thing to do. Is the meter(s ) prepayment meter ? You will have proof of the date that you took over the property with your dated short term lease contract. You may have to send a copy of that to the supplier as proof as there could be thousands owing on the utilities. Keep the meter reading you took when you moved in. Prepayment meters will have a key for the electric and a card for the gas usually with the suppliers name on it. If there is a water meter take that reading as well to supply to the local water authority.

brenda50

No payment meter but found out it is Scottish Power so I will ring them. Many thanks.

EachPenny

When you move in, don't just write the meter readings down. Take photos of the readings and preferably email them to yourself so you have datestamped copies.

That will put you in a better position if any of the utility companies later claim your meter readings were incorrect.

brenda50

Brilliant.

footyguy

brenda50 wrote: »

I am moving into a let, where the last tenants did a bunk so I do not know who the last supplier was. My housing association says they do not have the last meter reading. I took it and sent it to my supplier British Gas who are taking over in the new property.

I am concerned that I will get billed since the last bill that was paid by the bunkers because no-one has officially read the meters. Any advice please?

This is very worrying.

What happened to the ingoing inventory/statement of condition?
If that wasn't done, the energy meters may be the least of your worries.

poppasmurf_bewdley

footyguy wrote: »

This is very worrying.

What happened to the ingoing inventory/statement of condition?
If that wasn't done, the energy meters may be the least of your worries.

Housing Associations don't normally do ingoing inventories or statements of condition as they are usually let completely empty and in a liveable condition. Many actually remove things like carpets before someone new moves in.

Richmc

EachPenny wrote: »

When you move in, don't just write the meter readings down. Take photos of the readings and preferably email them to yourself so you have datestamped copies.

That will put you in a better position if any of the utility companies later claim your meter readings were incorrect.

Better still do what I did, get the daily paper on the day you move and photograph it next to the meter as some companies may not believe the date stamp of the email on it's own.

EachPenny

Richmc wrote: »

Better still do what I did, get the daily paper on the day you move and photograph it next to the meter as some companies may not believe the date stamp of the email on it's own.

Unfortunately the dated newspaper trick doesn't add much if the company is claiming the email dates have been faked.

All the newspaper will do is show the picture was taken on or after the date of publication. You could use several weeks worth of energy after moving in and then take a picture of an old newspaper claiming the picture was taken on that date some weeks before. So the company could simply claim you are using faked email dates and a photo of an old newspaper.

My suggestion of a datestamped email is only so the company can see they are dealing with a pedant who is likely to make their life difficult and not worth arguing with

I might also offer to obtain evidence in the form of a statement from my email provider to confirm their servers do indeed store an email of that date containing an attachment as described, but I would be seeking to recover the costs of doing so from the disbelieving company.

And just for good measure I would suggest that if I were to complain to Ofgem, it is unlikely the company would find themselves in a happy place having falsely accused their customer of faking email dates (a criminal offence if I'm correct) just to avoid paying a few quid for electricity and gas.

Finally, in this age of social media, I might also suggest they consider the business impact on a certain US airline following their decision to disembark a passenger - would they really wish me to tweet to the world that 'EnergyCorp' falsely accuses its customers of faking email dates?