Unsolicited bill

tangotonyb

I own a property that is let out by an Agency in a full management agreement. I have not lived there myself for many years. Each summer, the property is vacant for a month and I notice a small fee show up on the accounts for the energy bill for this period.

Suddenly last week i got a voicemail from EON asking me to contact them regarding this property. I do so, and the person I spoke to was unable to provide any information on the problem there and then so I gave him the agency phone number and said they deal with it, not me.

Yesterday I started receiving texts from EON threatening me with debt collectors if I don't pay the outstanding bill which it turns out is over £99 - I had to follow a web address in the text to find this amount - no other details available. The curious thing was that the account was now linked to my HOME postcode - not the rental property.

Tried to phone EON twice, but after waiting 10 mins, I just get disconnected, so I emailed them and reiterated what I had told them over the phone. I received a message back saying they would look into it.

The threatening texts keep arriving. Nothing in the post.


I wonder if they are chasing unpaid bills from the previous tenants and so have just gone to the last phone number on the file and then linked it to my current address as I had EON supply power here back in 2012. Is this legitimate though? Is the owner of a property liable for unpaid bills? Surely the contract lies between the occupants and the energy companies?

System

tangotonyb wrote: »

I own a property that is let out by an Agency in a full management agreement. I have not lived there myself for many years. Each summer, the property is vacant for a month and I notice a small fee show up on the accounts for the energy bill for this period.

Suddenly last week i got a voicemail from EON asking me to contact them regarding this property. I do so, and the person I spoke to was unable to provide any information on the problem there and then so I gave him the agency phone number and said they deal with it, not me.

Yesterday I started receiving texts from EON threatening me with debt collectors if I don't pay the outstanding bill which it turns out is over £99 - I had to follow a web address in the text to find this amount - no other details available. The curious thing was that the account was now linked to my HOME postcode - not the rental property.

Tried to phone EON twice, but after waiting 10 mins, I just get disconnected, so I emailed them and reiterated what I had told them over the phone. I received a message back saying they would look into it.

The threatening texts keep arriving. Nothing in the post.


I wonder if they are chasing unpaid bills from the previous tenants and so have just gone to the last phone number on the file and then linked it to my current address as I had EON supply power here back in 2012. Is this legitimate though? Is the owner of a property liable for unpaid bills? Surely the contract lies between the occupants and the energy companies?

You are not liable for charges accrued by your previous tenants; however, you (or your letting agent) may need to provide E.oN with confirmation that the property was let and when. Suppliers will always go for the lowest hanging fruit when there is money owing. When you have your 'ducks in a row', I suggest that you e-mail E.oN with all the facts - include dates and meter readings where possible.

E.ON_Company_Rep_Amy

Hi tangotonyb,

Sorry to hear you’ve been having problems.

Thanks Hangus for your advice on this one:)

Sounds like this is being caused by a dispute around who was responsible for the property at certain times. Guessing, but it might be your former tenant is claiming they gave up responsibility before you're saying they did. If they've contacted us and closed their account, we'll have issued a final bill and opened a new account to cover energy usage from that date.

With changes of tenancy, there's often a period in between one tenant moving out and another moving in. Generally, accounts for these interim periods are put down to the legal owner or their agent. I suspect that's what's happened here. The arrears you mention probably refer to this period. Without a forwarding address, we'll have sent bills, reminders etc to the property concerned.

Like Hengus said, you’re not liable for other tenants bills, if you weren’t responsible for the property at the time we’re billing you for.

We've a particular Home Moves team who deal exclusively with this type of thing. If you send all the relevant details including the tenancy agreements to them, they'll be happy to check our bills match the dates stated. The 'contact us' page on our website lets you add attachments to an email and these will be picked up by this team..

Thanks

Amy

tangotonyb

Hi Amy,

I've contacted the agency who manage the property and they have said they will call EON. They DID write to you in August (as they do every year) instructing them that the previous tenancy had ended and a new one would be beginning shortly. As I indicated above, in previous years there has been a small amount to cover the standing charges in the vacant month(s) and the very small amount of energy used in this period by decorators etc.

SO the question arises still as to why they are now chasing ME? They should not even have my contact details on file as I have not lived in the property or been responsible for it for many years - all correspondence should be via the agency.