GLIDE asking me to pay an outstanding bill

sm1it

I bought a tenanted house in November 2016. The tenants living there used the company 'Glide' to pay their bills. My letting agent advised me to tell the tenants to end using Glide and put the utilities in my name so I could pay them going forward (utilities paid as part of tenants rent). I contacted the Utilities provider and said I would be paying going forward as of the 18th November; the tenants contacted Glide and ended their contract with them, everything seemed ok.
Fast forward to the end of 2019 I received a "Outstanding Debt" letter from Glide saying there was a £500 bill for utilities used at the property for the period 18 November 2016 to 18 December 2016.
The first utility bill for the property in my name is for the 18th December 2016 onwards.
My understanding on the situation is that Glide have paid the bill for that month period but failed to recover the money from the tenants at the time.
The tenants from that time are long gone (students) and now Glide are asking me to pay the bill because I owned the house at that time.
Obviously I'm reluctant to pay this bill. Do I have a position to refuse to pay the bill? Am I liable?
Just for clarity I have never had a contract with Glide; it would be near impossible to track down any of the student tenants from that period.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Essmum

Send them the tenancy agreement showing who was responsible for the property at the time.. its then their responsibility to chase the tenants for the outstanding amount. 

Hasbeen

I would never even consider putting any utilities in my name. really bad advice from agents.

peter_the_piper

Essmum said:

Send them the tenancy agreement showing who was responsible for the property at the time.. its then their responsibility to chase the tenants for the outstanding amount. 

"I contacted the Utilities provider and said I would be paying going forward as of the 18th November;"

This is his problem Glide have followed his instructions.

brewerdave

Effectively you took over the supply from 18th November with Glide as your "deemed supplier" - your switch to your preferred supplier obviously took place on 18th December ,so YOU are responsible for that month's bill. Did you actually read the meters on 18th November and 18th December? If not ,then the students may well have deliberately massaged their closing reads down to Glide ,leaving you with a bigger bill as a result!!

Essmum

peter_the_piper said:

Essmum said:

Send them the tenancy agreement showing who was responsible for the property at the time.. its then their responsibility to chase the tenants for the outstanding amount. 

"I contacted the Utilities provider and said I would be paying going forward as of the 18th November;"

This is his problem Glide have followed his instructions.

Oh yes.. apologies.I missed that bit.
OP looks like you may indeed be liable for that bill.Not sure if Glide would be amenable to a payment plan or maybe a reduced amount for settling in full.

sm1it

brewerdave said:

Effectively you took over the supply from 18th November with Glide as your "deemed supplier" - your switch to your preferred supplier obviously took place on 18th December ,so YOU are responsible.

Hi brewerdave, thanks for the reply.
If Glide are acting as my "deemed supplier" are they still able to ask for payment 3 years after the switch, doesn't the final bill have to be issued within 6 weeks?
On the other hand if they are just saying they are collecting the debt as a middle man then isn't the contract they had with the students who lived there 3 years ago?
Thanks for the time you've taken to already answer my initial query.

brewerdave

To answer your first query, it isn't a "legal" requirement to issue the final bill within 6 weeks ; OFGEM chickened out of making that decision HOWEVER if no bill has been issued at all then it might come under the 12 month back billing rule, altho' I'm not sure whether OFGEM would regard GLIDE as a utility provider.
The second query is more straight forward. In your initial post , you said that the students had ended their contract with Glide (presumably ~ 18th November) so they have no responsibility as far as I can see.

MWT

sm1it said:

"I contacted the Utilities provider and said I would be paying going forward as of the 18th November; the tenants contacted Glide and ended their contract with them, everything seemed ok."

I think this bit need clarifying in order to give you a straight answer about liability...

When you say you contacted 'the utilities provide' do you mean the one that Glide was acting as an agent for, or was this a completely different provider and hence in reality a switch?

sm1it

I contacted the new supplier (eon) which I intended to use. I asked the tenants to contact Glide and end their contract with Glide and effectively whoever Glide were using as the utility providers.

MWT

sm1it said:

I contacted the new supplier (eon) which I intended to use. I asked the tenants to contact Glide and end their contract with Glide and effectively whoever Glide were using as the utility providers.

Then the only missing piece of the puzzle is did you contact Glide to inform them that you had taken over the account from your tenants?

If you did then the back billing rules would seem to cover you as they should have given you the final bill at the time.

If you didn't contact Glide at the time or make any attempt to find out what was owed for the period from 18 November - 18 December then I'm not so sure you can avoid this one.

Your tenants would seem to be off the hook as they satisfied their contract with Glide by paying up to the 18th November...