Back billing

Bark01

Hi

I know the general principle of back billing but not sure how it applies in my case. I’ve altered the dates for simplicity.

I was with my previous supplier for dual fuel from 1/2/18 until 1/2/19

I last received a bill 1/11/18 that billed up to 31/10/18. I have not had a bill to cover 1/11/18 - 1/2/19 for either fuel, but have been allowed to swap suppliers.

My elec account has been correctly billed up until 1/11/18

My gas meter was replaced 30/6/18 and was correctly billed before this but has been under billed by a large amount ever since.

I have 2 closed (in my favour) ombudsmen complaints based on this billing issue awarding me £135.

As we are now approaching the last point my gas correctly billed does the 12 months period for gas start to kick in next month? Or does the fact they have at least billed me (even though incorrectly) mean it doesn’t kick in until November?

If I get through to feb without a bill I presume the whole period nov-feb then can’t be billed? But can the incorrect gas billing jun-Nov be corrected? Can I then request the £135 ombudsman award is paid on top of them not billing me.

At the moment according to what I’ve been billed I’m slightly in credit, however I make it I should be £500 in debt if they’d billed me correctly. I have pointed this out to my supplier and told them the money is here should they want to bill me.... I don’t want to poke them anymore as I think the back billing will become advantageous.

Many thanks

Streaky_Bacon

The key point is that you can't be billed for energy more than 12 months ago, so you need to consider the meter readings too, because you need to know what energy you used and when.

So you were billed correctly in June 2018, but have been under billed since.

So, from June 2019 onwards, they cannot bill you for any units that you used since June 2018, if they didn't bill you within 12 months.

Presumably your meter reading was 0000 in June 2018, and let's say you've used 1000 units now, but receive a bill today for 500 units.

So, you are under billed by 500 units, and they will start to lose the right to bill for them probably on a pro-rata basis of about 1.5 units per day (in the absence of other information).

The actual rule is that they can't bill for unbilled units "which could reasonably be considered to have been consumed". It could be argued that they should be calculated on a pro-rata basis, or should take into account seasonal variations.

If you could show, for example, that 400 of those units were used by the end of September 2018, they may lose the right to bill for those units by the end of September 2019.

So, the interim bills can make a difference (by catching up some of those unbilled units) but they don't restart the clock for any unbilled units.