Help reading bill

staceypears

Hi there 
can anyone help me realise what happened here? I left this property 11 month ago, today they took out £1600 and from what I can see was arrears. I always paid £120 per no tv then £110 when I moved to this company, it seems such a lot to just take. Could there be a problem I’m missing ? 

elsien

Are the meter readings correct?
Did you take readings when you moved in and when you left? 

Does the E on the gas bill mean that they are all based on estimates or did you send any readings in? 

macman

69,772 kWh in just over a year?!
Do you have actual opening and closing reads?

Gerry1

Looks like you never sent any night rate E7 electricity readings, no gas readings and no closing readings, so that probably explains why the bill is wonky.  

JC_Derby

D= deemed (I believe)
C= customer
E= estimated

Gerry looks to have got the rest of it covered.

rp1974

Did you tell them you were leaving/had left?.
Why is the direct debit still active 11 months after you left?.

Streaky_Bacon

It's interesting that the bill is dated 1st Jan 2020, but seems to include a Direct Debit taken on 2nd Nov 2020.

Is there any record of a bill actually be sent to you shortly after 1st Jan 2020?

I suspect that they have only just sent this bill and taken the direct debit for it, but are claiming that you were originally billed in January (if so, why wait 10 months to take from an active DD).

The first issue is to find out whether you actually have actual meter readings.

The second issue, if you don't have actual readings, is to query how they came up with their estimates.

The third issue, is to take into account that they cannot charge you for unbilled energy used more than 12 months before the bill was produced (or DD taken), even if you did not provide any readings (the back billing rules).

This means that, assuming a real bill date of Oct 2020, they could not bill you for energy used before Oct 2019, that had not already been billed (or been paid by DD). I suspect that this will certainly reduce the amount of any final bill.

For example, your gas bill is £2,500 for 12 months from Dec 18 to Dec 19, but they can only bill from Oct 2019 (if they billed for the first time in Oct 20), so they would only be able to demand 2 months out of the 12 (£2,500 * 2 / 12) = £416, but they can keep DD payments made towards the gas, which complicates the calculation.

Do you have the real readings, and do you have any other bills from Avro? (if you still have access to the account, download all available bills now)

I don't know what has happened with your account but I had to deal with a Big 6 provider who produced amended bills two years after I left a property, backdated them, and swore blind that they were the original bills. Even when I produced the originals (that had been paid in full) they disputed almost all the way to the ombudsman, but dropped it shortly before.

staceypears

I’m not sure about the readings, I remember filling some in on line. I’m going to call them today, can anyone advise me what to say to them. Sorry I sound dumb, I’ve never been good at understanding these bills and know I’d just end up paying it as I don’t know what point I’m arguing 
thanks 

staceypears

macman said:

69,772 kWh in just over a year?!
Do you have actual opening and closing reads?

I’m not sure about the readings, I remember filling some in on line. I’m going to call them today, can anyone advise me what to say to them. Sorry I sound dumb, I’ve never been good at understanding these bills and know I’d just end up paying it as I don’t know what point I’m arguing 
thanks 

elsien

Did you not take a final reading when you left the property? Moving forwards you should always take a reading and a photo of the meter when you move in and when you move out. Otherwise you potentially end up paying for other people's utilities as well as your own.  
The readings you did give will probably be the C ones on the bill, unless you had a meter reader come round. Can you remember what you gave readings for? Do you still have access to their online system? 

macman

Assuming a 3 b/r property with gas CH and DHW, 12,500kWh pa is a typical usage. 70K kWh is more than 500% higher than expected, you cannot possibly have used all that.
Go back through your bills and find an opening read. Because, to be blunt, without that and a closing read, you have no chance of calculating what your actual bill should be and it will have to be estimated. However, their estimates are ludicrous.
As mentioned above, why on earth have you left your DD active 11m after vacating the property? The normal procedure is to cancel it after receipt and payment of the final bill.