Shock Electricity Bill

deathwishdave

Hello,

My family moved to our current house in July 2016, and we notified our electricity provider of the change, along with a meter reading.

In September 2017, the electricity prover sent round someone to read our meters.

Today, I received a letter from our electricity provider entitled "We're your new energy supplier" which confused me somewhat. I spoke with my wife, and it became apparent that we both were under the impression that the other was paying for our electricity.

We just spoke with our energy supplier, and they confirmed that no payments had been made, and that we now owed almost £1500!

I enquired as to why I had only just received a letter welcoming me as a new customer, and he was unable to explain it, and admitted that it was confusing. I also confirmed with them that they had received our change in circumstances notification last August.

I said that I felt that they shared at least some of the responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves in. I was then told that a manager would conduct an investigation into what happened.

Can anyone advise as to what rights I have in this situation please? and how I can best handle it.

Many thanks.

FullForce

D'oh! .

If you both thought you were paying this, and neither were, you presumably have £1500 each in your bank accounts

The supplier only wants £1500, so that leaves another £1500 for a wonderful Christmas! Enjoy!!!

:xmastree::santa2::rudolf::snow_laug

System

deathwishdave wrote: »

Hello,

My family moved to our current house in July 2016, and we notified our electricity provider of the change, along with a meter reading.

In September 2017, the electricity prover sent round someone to read our meters.

Today, I received a letter from our electricity provider entitled "We're your new energy supplier" which confused me somewhat. I spoke with my wife, and it became apparent that we both were under the impression that the other was paying for our electricity.

We just spoke with our energy supplier, and they confirmed that no payments had been made, and that we now owed almost £1500!

I enquired as to why I had only just received a letter welcoming me as a new customer, and he was unable to explain it, and admitted that it was confusing. I also confirmed with them that they had received our change in circumstances notification last August.

I said that I felt that they shared at least some of the responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves in. I was then told that a manager would conduct an investigation into what happened.

Can anyone advise as to what rights I have in this situation please? and how I can best handle it.

Many thanks.

This is somewhat complicated. When you moved in to the property, you would have been on a Deemed Contract with the existing supplier to the property. Are you saying that you advised this supplier that you had taken over responsibility for the property? If so, did you discuss the type of tariff that you would be on as most Deemed Contracts are on the supplier's standard variable rate.

Over the past 18 months, you have made no effort to find out why no Welcome Pack was received nor, it would seem, have you made any effort to get a bill. In such circumstances, it is unlikely that you can invoke what is known as the Back Billing Code.

My advice: try to agree a repayment plan and, in future, provide your supplier with an actual meter reading each month for accurate billing and to prevent further bill shocks. Finally, make sure that you are your supplier's cheapest tariff whilst this situation is resolved.

ajbell

£1500 is a lot of electricity in just over a year, do you heat with electricity?.
About paying the £1500, you haven't paid them anything so you still have the money and electricity isn't free.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

The onus is on the new occupant to determine who is their energy supplier and give them your meter reading(s) on the date you moved in? Did you supply meter readings?

What do you mean by a 'change of circumstance notification'

Did you notify the water company and Council tax authorities you were in occupation?

The energy supplier has no idea if the property has been occupied since the last occupant moved out.

You have possibly heard about the 12 month back-billing provision? This means that if you have not received a bill you can only be charged for the last 12 month's consumption. However the code specifically excludes cases where new occupants do not take appropriate measures to contact the energy company to obtain a bill; so it is doubtful IMO that the code will apply.

Assuming you didn't supply meter readings on occupation, it is quite possible that you could be paying some of the previous occupant's consumption; and you cannot challenge it now.

P.S. In the many cases on MSE where occupants have been surprised to receive a huge bill, yours is the first case where a couple thought the other person was paying;)

matelodave

Most of us would have noticed that we weren't getting any bills and that money wasn't going out of our accounts.

My wife and I have sparate accounts but we know who's paying what.

I'm guessing that the best you can hope for is time to pay.

In future make sure you read your meter a bit more often than once in 18 months and keep an eye on your bills.

Not a lot of sympathy I'm afraid as most of it's down to you not taking control.

deathwishdave

@Hengus

Are you saying that you advised this supplier that you had taken over responsibility for the property?

We did within the first week of moving in.

If so, did you discuss the type of tariff that you would be on as most Deemed Contracts are on the supplier's standard variable rate.

I don't believe I had that conversation with them.

Over the past 18 months, you have made no effort to find out why no Welcome Pack was received nor, it would seem, have you made any effort to get a bill.

Unfortunately not, we are feeling pretty stupid about this. A series of miss communications during a stressful time led to this mistake.

it is unlikely that you can invoke what is known as the Back Billing Code.

Thanks for making me aware of this! checked on first-utility website, the conditions that would exempt us from this don't apply, so perhaps there is a chance
@ajbell

£1500 is a lot of electricity in just over a year, do you heat with electricity?.

We don't heat with electricity. We were expecting a large bill, but this was a big shock.

@Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks!

The onus is on the new occupant to determine who is their energy supplier and give them your meter reading(s) on the date you moved in? Did you supply meter readings?

We did supply meter readings, and were able to tell them the date we called. They appear not to have a record of this however.

What do you mean by a 'change of circumstance notification'

Sorry. We called with name, address, and meter readings.

Did you notify the water company and Council tax authorities you were in occupation?

Yes, we did.

The energy supplier has no idea if the property has been occupied since the last occupant moved out.

The property was a repossession, and had been vacant for over a year. A meter reading was provided several days before we got the keys, we are assuming the management company provided it.

You have possibly heard about the 12 month back-billing provision? This means that if you have not received a bill you can only be charged for the last 12 month's consumption. However the code specifically excludes cases where new occupants do not take appropriate measures to contact the energy company to obtain a bill; so it is doubtful IMO that the code will apply.

That is a shame. Our stupidity has cancelled out theirs.

In the many cases on MSE where occupants have been surprised to receive a huge bill, yours is the first case where a couple thought the other person was paying

There is lesson somewhere about good communication ;-). My wife handled the energy at our previous home, and I was the one who called to get our electricity switched on in this house (even though it already was), and this gave rise to the misunderstanding.

@matelodave

Most of us would have noticed that we weren't getting any bills and that money wasn't going out of our accounts.

yes, it was a foolish mistake.

Robin9

Time to get your electricity under control.

First ring your present supplier and swop to their cheapest tariff. Pay off the backlog asap.

Then work out what your annual kwh is and use a comparison site to switch again.

Then read your meter at least every month; read and understand your bills.

deathwishdave

Do Energy Companies have an obligation to let you know what their cheapest Tarif is?

Robin9

Have a look at your bill and you will see that they give details.

dogshome

I'm amazed that a husband and wife would each think the other was paying the Energy bills without any discussion, but then as an oldie I've learnt that if you take the roof off anybody's house you will be surprised whats going on inside - we all lead different lives

However, according to the OP the supplier has admitted that they were notified of his occpation soon after he moved in.
So this is not a case of a lazy or shyster customer just not registering with a supplier, it's a case of the supplier dropping the ball and failing to send out a Welcome letter and bills for 18 months

The Back-Billing code should apply, and even now the OP has only been advised of the debt by letter and had no itemised bill, so the 12 month billing clock is still running

We don't know who the supplier is, but my guess is that it's SP