Suddenly being chased by SSE for an unissued bill from late 2012

roofmare

Hi all

I saw from a search that someone else has recently been chased by SSE's debt collectors LCS in relation to bill from around the same time, but my situation is a little different.

We bought our house in October 2012. I don't recall when we moved in (there was a delay while we did some work on it), but it was by Christmas that year.

About three years ago we got a series of letters addressed to the executors of the estate of the previous tenants. We had permission from the executors to open mail and let them know about anything serious, although by that time I'd lost their contact details so couldn't let them know what happened. The letters said that they owed around £400. I eventually rang LCS and SSE and explained the situation, and they confirmed there was nothing for me to do about it.

Then about two years ago another series of letters started up. I rang SSE again and repeated that there was no point their debt collectors continuing to send stuff to our house for the executors, because the tenant had died several years ago, the estate had nothing in it, and in any event we had no way of contacting them. Lots of apologies that this was still happening, and assurances that the letters would stop.

And they did until about two weeks ago, when I received a letter from LCS addressed to me, asking that I contact them in relation to a debt of £450+ for the period May 2011 to 4 January 2013, including an admin fee of around £60. I dropped them an email the day I received the letter saying that we only moved in at the end of the period they mentioned, and that this could be confirmed by looking at land registry records.

Only two days after this first letter arrived, I received another letter from LCS, this time with much more strident language, including threats of registering a default against me because I hadn't paid the charges nor "offered a valid reason for non payment despite our previous communications [sic - I'd had one letter by this point]".

Bear in mind that there has never been so much as a bill issued in my name, and these two letters - over 5.5 years after we bought the house - are the first correspondence I've received in my name.

I rang SSE, who could see that I'd called in the past about this issue. All very apologetic, but [correction - I said that they told me I was liable to pay during this call, but now I think back, I recall that they actually just asked me to send them some evidence about when we moved in. I just realised that I didn't do that.]

Oh, and then an hour after I spoke to SSE, I got a reply from LCS in relation to my earlier email, saying "Okay, we'll stop chasing you in relation to this matter"!

I just got off the phone to someone who called me from SSE. They have all the notes from my previous conversations. Now, in spite of their debt collector telling me I'm off the hook, SSE tells me they need to issue a split bill for the period. I asked how they could do that, given that they have no contract with me, and no meter readings for the period, so no way of actually telling anything about my energy consumption. Apparently they'll do an estimate for the energy consumption, and I'm just responsible for electricity bills from the day I move in, even if there's no contract! I asked for the legal basis for this conclusion, but SSE couldn't answer.

I told them that given the circumstances, the amount of time that had passed, and the amount of time they've already had me spend on this matter, surely the simplest thing would be to write off the debt as a matter of goodwill? Nope. They have to go through a process of issuing a bill. I asked why they didn't apply this process any of the other times that I'd been in contact with them over the years - no answer.

I've told them to note that I won't be paying anything they send me, so we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about what my rights are here? I know they're within the 6 year period for debt recovery, but I can't see how I can owe a debt to someone I've never contracted with to supply me with electricity!

Many thanks

brewerdave

When you take over responsibility for a property, whether by purchase or tenancy, you are automatically a customer of the existing Utility suppliers under whats known as a deemed contract so I'm afraid that SSE are in the right!

What you will have to check is that the usage billed for the "overlap period" agrees with your actual usage for those time periods since. If the calculated usage is lower then good, if greater, then you have an argument for a reduction.
Having said all that, I'm surprised that SSE aren't writing it off.
FURTHER THOUGHT - You must have arranged a supply contract with someone .Did they not expect you to be switching from SSE?

roofmare

Just looked up deemed contract - so there is a basis for charging us from when we bought. Thanks (I guess :rotfl:)

My recollection is that it was actually SSE we went with as our supplier at the time. I wouldn't have lied to them about when we bought/moved in, but 5.5 years later, who knows what actually happened? If they can't show what happened at the time, it may be worth arguing that it's too late for them to issue a bill for something so old (although looking at the back billing regs, it isn't clear whether the current situation falls within its scope).