Land lord used our electric supply

HouseBuyer77

I guess it's possible the builders were running an industrial dehumidifier or electric heater non-stop off the supply? Seems unlikely for them to do be doing this for a whole year though.

Ultimately this is why it's important to take meter readings regularly. It alerts you to greater than expected usage so you can track down the source.

For example did you have an electric immersion heater? Those are very power hungry and if you accidentally left it on for a whole year could potentially cause that kind of usage.

martindow

I suppose another possibility is the the meter has been read incorrectly. Did you take meter readings when you left?

moneyistooshorttomention

anselld wrote: »

There is no way a cement mixer and a few power tools accounts for £900 usage. No excuse for the Landlord, but it is going to be difficult to separate his usage from other factors even if he admits it.

I don't know how much it cost me in total - but when I first moved into my current house and promptly started "ripping it apart" I was quite worried when I saw my (joint) gas/electric bill was around £135 a month.

Thankfully, it did go down noticeably after the major part of the work was done and I'm now paying around £75 a month (a couple of inflation price rises since).

So that renovation work was clearly costing me money on fuel - yep...all the stuff like a cement mixer and power tools going. But I'm guessing the rest was down to my central heating thermostat kept getting "told" that the house was too cold and "requested" to whack the heating back up again (all that leaving open of doors the workmen kept doing....).

Don't know how OP's house was heated/whether anything like that could have been happening??

Valerie_bruce

Thanks for the comments everyone. Just to clarify a few points: the socket is located on a wooden pole at the end of our property, our landlord lives directly opposite and the 2 new builds are next to the house we rented. We got a final bill after we moved out. We both work full time so we’re away from the house most of the day, it was only after we discussed it with our old neighbour on the other side of us: they had seen the work men use it. Our ex landlord has refused us our deposit back. So no chance of getting any payment towards electric he used.

moneyistooshorttomention

I don't suppose the neighbour did take photos??

It does rather look as if all you can do now is warn the next person moving into the house that the landlord is a thief. Even if he doesn't steal electric ever again in the future - he has "shown his colours" as being a thief and they need to know that's what he is like.

I can't say I'm feeling very confident of you getting your stolen money back from him if you have no proof - but I feel you need to at least ask for it (in writing) and hope he has some vestiges of conscience or fear of consequences that you might manage to find a way to "down him" for this.

I know I've managed to get money back I found a thief had stolen from me before now because I asked for it and their "fear of consequences" was that their job prospects would have been damaged if they hadn't reimbursed me. They handed all the money back they owed me - and their job prospects continued as planned.

Rosemary7391

Valerie_bruce wrote: »

Our ex landlord has refused us our deposit back. So no chance of getting any payment towards electric he used.

Why has he refused to return your deposit? Was it properly protected with a deposit scheme?