Scottish Power - £2,700 bill HELP

callmefred

Hi - this is my first time posting, so please go easy on me.

For context - I bought a flat in August 2015 and lived in it for 18 months, before I rented it out to a tenant from Feb 2017.

I went to pick up some mail the other day and saw a letter addressed to MR OWNER OCCUPIER from Scottish Power, which states I owe £2,700 in bills. In the time I was living at the property, I never received any letter from Scottish Power and this has absolutely shaken me.

I had been paying SSE for what I thought was my electricity and heating, but it appears this hasn't been the case - I was just paying for the heating. I spoke with someone at Scottish Power and they've confirmed the meter has been theirs since 2013 and it appears this bill has been growing and growing since then. They wanted to know about previous tenants, but I've lost all details of previous occupants/owners, which SP has been requesting before they will do anything.

The bill has an estimated reading of 14988 - I know when I moved out the reading was 8792 (which I submitted to SSE!).

I'm freaking out. As mentioned, I have never received a bill from SP before now and there's no way in hell I can pay £2,700. Is it possible they sent correspondence to a different address? Can anyone advise me on what I can or should do?

callmefred

FYI - the flat was a new build so address took a while to appear on Royal Mail database, hence thinking about the address being incorrect. Also, my tenant pays his bills to SSE only

D_M_E

1. The bill is estimated and includes energy used when you were not the owner - have you pointed this out to them, and supplied your actual move in meter reading and move in date?

2. Have you checked that they are in fact the supplier not SSE?

3. Have you checked that the meter they are trying to bill you for is the actual one that is supplying the flat?

macman

You say 'electricity and heating'. Do you mean gas and electricity? How is the flat heated and hot watered? It sounds as if you were only paying for the gas, and never registered for the electricity?
You will need to prove your date of occupation and your date of exit (when your tenant took over)., since you are only liable for usage between those dates. Surely you must have paperwork relating to this?
As above, the first thing to do is get an accurate bill for your own period of occupation-not estimated.
If you were not aware that the electricity meter was there, how can you have supplied an exit reading for it? The bill in dispute is not presumably for gas but for electricity? So the reading you gave was for gas and was presumably settled when you moved out?
It also sounds as if your tenant has repeated your error and only registered for one supply (gas?

callmefred

Thanks for your reply D_M_E:

1. I don't have the meter reading for when I moved in anymore, though I did tell SP when I moved in. I did point out that I have an actual reading (photo from the date I moved out) but they didn't seem to focus on that.

2 & 3. Scottish Power are the supplier - the serial number I've got for the meter matches their records

callmefred

Hi macman:

I mean heating and electric - i.e. there's no gas for the flat. As it's part of a new build it's heated from a heat exchange unit (provided by SSE), so my thinking now is that I have been paying for heating that communally heats the development.

I have a completion letter from a solicitor to prove when I moved in, and a contract with my tenant to say when he moved in/I moved out.

The exit reading I took I submitted on the SSE web account when I moved out. So I submitted a reading for for the wrong service - though I never heard anything back from them. I think my tenant is doing the same (paying SSE only) as that's what I instructed him to do, as that's what I did!

macman

You purchased this as a new build: surely you were aware that it had a community heating system when you purchased it, and that was not paid for under your electricity account?
Was the exit reading for your electricity meter or your heating meter (assuming it's metered in each flat)? Were you aware of both meters?
If you have been submitting readings from the wrong meter, then both accounts may be in arrears.
The supplier should accept the documents you have as proof of the start and end dates, so the issue appears to be proving start and end readings for the electricity.

callmefred

macman wrote: »

You purchased this as a new build: surely you were aware that it had a community heating system when you purchased it, and that was not paid for under your electricity account?
Was the exit reading for your electricity meter or your heating meter (assuming it's metered in each flat)? Were you aware of both meters?
If you have been submitting readings from the wrong meter, then both accounts may be in arrears.
The supplier should accept the documents you have as proof of the start and end dates, so the issue appears to be proving start and end readings for the electricity.

Hi macman - I was naive enough to think that it was all linked. There wasn't a heating meter in the flat, so I assumed it was all part of the same thing - the SSE bills were headed electricity and not knowing enough about the content of the bills, thought that covered everything.

Agree, I don't know enough about the other meter so will have to check it when I next visit.

PLeased to know the info I have should be enough to prove the start/end dates for electricity. The question I have is what do you think they will bill me for, if there's no start reading I can use?

D_M_E

Just because they have supplied you with a meter serial number does not necessarily mean that that is the actual meter supplying your flat.

Before doing the below, make sure your gas boiler is powered down correctly -

Have you checked it - read the meter then turn everything off, look at the meter with everything off - is it showing no movement?

Next, fill up a kettle plug it in turn it on and go and watch the meter.

If a digital one does it advance by one, possibly 2, units (or fractions of a unit), or if it has a spinning disc, does the disc spin when the kettle is working?