Moved house and energy company demanding payment

CashStrapped

This is the order of things regarding moving into a new property.

1) You move in (from this moment you are in a deemed contract with the existing supplier).
2) You find out who the existing supplier is
3) You take a meter reading
4) You ring the existing supplier, create an account and give them the opening reading you took and confirm the date you moved in.
5) At this point, and only at this point can you switch supplier.
6)Your new supplier contacts your existing supplier and takes over the account (takes 2-4 weeks).

While some companies allow you to take your tariff to a new address, you still need to follow those steps first. You cannot transfer it from day one.

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You seemingly failed to do 1-4, so technically you are still in a deemed contract with the existing supplier. They will charge you accordingly, you will not pay twice because you do not actually owe your current supplier for that period. You need to organise this with your current supplier and come to an agreement.

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They may be charging you from before you moved in because you did not create an account with them and tell them when you moved in. So they are just charging you from when the previous tenants moved out and/or closed their account! How else are they to know when you moved in.

There may not have been any use in those days or it may have been a trickle. But because you did not ring them, give a meter reading and confirm the day you moved in they will just base it off the previous occupants leaving.

You just need to give them the opening meter reading. They should then adjust the date you moved in, which will save you a small amount for the daily standing charge.

macman

You can't move an existing energy account or supplier from one address to another. So you are liable from the day of completion (not exchange) to the day you switched away from SP. Normally 4-5 weeks to transfer.
The deemed contract system has been in place for about 30 years now, so I guess you haven't moved in a while...

Carrot007

By trying to avoid having an incumbant supplier you have brought this on yourself.

If you tried to change the electricity supplier before exchange/completion you have done something stupid.

By not contacting the supplier or taking reads you have just made this worse.

You need to find out when the change of supplier happened. For each utility if there are both as they are going to be different. And then you need to ring the supplier, apologise for your stupidity for imagining they have a procedure that says you are not responsible after you buy a house (or rent) and ask for a bill for the period you owe.