Late Payment - Credit Report - Severn Trent

cwilk3

I'm looking for some advice regarding four late payment marks which are showing on my credit score regarding a single £51.70 invoice, which was paid within 30 days of receiving it...

Background

In July 2017, I moved into rented accommodation and created a Severn Trent account on their website. In January 2018, I moved out of the property and asked my letting agency to forward any post to my new address which, unfortunately, didn't happen. In June 2018, I was sent a reminder to my new address (directly from Seven Trent) to pay an invoice from December 2017, which I paid in full shortly after.

In 2019, I noticed that from this account, I had four consecutive late payment marks on my credit score from February 2018, March 2018, April 2018 and May 2018. These were classed as a "serious payment problem" on my credit file. These were all in relation to the above invoice and are the only late payment marks on my credit file.

From contacting Severn Trent, they confirmed that they were aware that I was no longer at the property and closed my online account in February 2018. Despite this, they confirm that my final invoice was sent to that address after they were made aware that a new tenant had moved in.

In May 2018, they claim that they were required to perform searches to locate a forwarding address and send a letter to this address informing me of the outstanding balance but again, this wasn't received. They made no attempt to contact me via email or telephone at any point.

Severn Trent sent an additional reminder notice to my new address in June 2018, which I paid in full shortly after. This was the first time I'd received the correspondence from Severn Trent.

Help?!

Aside from contacting Severn Trent is there anything I can do to appeal this? Please see a screenshot taken from Equifax below for reference;

cymruchris

Did you call them when you left your previous property? Did you update them of your address? 

It's currently a factual record of activity - so unlikely to get it changed, particularly if you didn't inform them of your change of address and appears as though you didn't attempt to check any final outstanding balances.

Relying on a letting agent/tenant to forward mail isn't a valid excuse for not getting the bill - if you'd paid for royal mail redirection - and could prove that - you might have a leg to stand on - but as you didn't - I don't think you'll get very far - other than trying to appeal to their better nature in the name of customer service to remove it - but as mentioned I think very unlikely based on the circumstances you've laid out.

zzyzx1221

Your only complaint is with the letting agency who failed to forward your letters.  But as you only had an informal arrangement with them anyway you have no chance of enforcing that.

People are required to send letters, under the Rules of Civil Procedure, if they're going to rely on them as evidence you were warned of the debt.  It's not their fault your shonky arrangement with the letting agent fell though.

Pay the debt and move on.  You have no defence in law.

[Deleted User]

cwilk3 said:

I'm looking for some advice regarding four late payment marks which are showing on my credit score regarding a single £51.70 invoice, which was paid within 30 days of receiving it...

Background

In July 2017, I moved into rented accommodation and created a Severn Trent account on their website. In January 2018, I moved out of the property and asked my letting agency to forward any post to my new address which, unfortunately, didn't happen. In June 2018, I was sent a reminder to my new address (directly from Seven Trent) to pay an invoice from December 2017, which I paid in full shortly after.

In 2019, I noticed that from this account, I had four consecutive late payment marks on my credit score from February 2018, March 2018, April 2018 and May 2018. These were classed as a "serious payment problem" on my credit file. These were all in relation to the above invoice and are the only late payment marks on my credit file.

From contacting Severn Trent, they confirmed that they were aware that I was no longer at the property and closed my online account in February 2018. Despite this, they confirm that my final invoice was sent to that address after they were made aware that a new tenant had moved in.

In May 2018, they claim that they were required to perform searches to locate a forwarding address and send a letter to this address informing me of the outstanding balance but again, this wasn't received. They made no attempt to contact me via email or telephone at any point.

Severn Trent sent an additional reminder notice to my new address in June 2018, which I paid in full shortly after. This was the first time I'd received the correspondence from Severn Trent.

Help?!

Aside from contacting Severn Trent is there anything I can do to appeal this? Please see a screenshot taken from Equifax below for reference;

Firstly, they weren’t your letting agency, you never had a contract with them. Secondly, don’t rely on other people forwarding your post and use Royal Mail’s redirection service. 

Why are you looking for another solution other than contacting Severn Trent which would seem like the obvious and most sensible solution? 

Cotswoldtony

Hi, Severn Trent Water and other water companies are not nice people to deal with and place late payments on your credit file and don't care. No debt should be applied to any credit file without court action but Water companies will because they can claim qualified privilage as a defence. I've had a 4 year battle with Severn Trent Water who took me to court recently for alleged debts which I defended as a L.I.P. 
The result was their claim was struck out of court so they lost.
As their claim failed in court I can now proceed to a defamation court case for placing false information with the credit rating agencies.
Welcome to adventures in legal land against these companies only interested in profit not customer service or vulnerable concessions.
Servern Trent Water C.E.O  Olivia Garfield turned down a 6 figure salary to become the new C.E.O until offered £24 million in shares as a bonus, google states her salary last year was £2.4 million making her the highest paid water company boss trashing peoples credit files with the protection in law of qualified privilage.

cwilk3

Update from thread creator: I contacted Severn Trent Water again after seeking advice in this forum, I didn't have high hopes of a resolution but thought it would be worth another shot. They have now resolved this issue and I have included information below which may be useful to others.

I contacted Severn Trent Water on 26th April. They responded on 17th May to say "As we have failed to address your complaint within 10 working days, you are due a payment of £25 under our Guaranteed Service Standards (GSS) – this has been refunded by cheque to ADDRESS". They also noted "I’ve looked through your account and can see that once the final bill and reminder reached your forwarding address you made the full payment, I’m please to let you know because of this I have spoken to our credit reporting team and updated the credit file between February 2018 and June 2018 to a natural query “Q” code."

When I initially asked Severn Trent to look into this case in 2019 I was told that there was nothing they could do so if anyone has gone through something similar and it is still causing issues on their credit file, I'd recommend reaching out to them again.

cwilk3

zzyzx1221 said:

Your only complaint is with the letting agency who failed to forward your letters.  But as you only had an informal arrangement with them anyway you have no chance of enforcing that.

People are required to send letters, under the Rules of Civil Procedure, if they're going to rely on them as evidence you were warned of the debt.  It's not their fault your shonky arrangement with the letting agent fell though.

Pay the debt and move on.  You have no defence in law.

As per my original post, the debt was paid in 2018 - within 30 days of receiving a final bill.

This issue has now been resolved (see post above). However, for clarity, my post was not regarding the informal agreement with my lettings agency - it was with Severn Trent. They were aware that I was no longer living at the property (through the new tenant) but continued to send letters to my old address and did not attempt any other means of communication i.e. e-mail or telephone. I accept and agree that it was my responsibility to inform Severn Trent when I vacated the property, which was a genuine oversight on my part. However, it seemed unreasonable to add multiple marks on my credit score without making adequate attempts to contact me.

NewLeaf1986

OP - well done, you're lucky in this instace - severn trent were under no obligation to do what they did.

Please note for future that it is your responsibility to notify all utility providers of your move out date, final meter readings, and forwarding address yourself, directly. 

K_S

cwilk3 said:

Update from thread creator: I contacted Severn Trent Water again after seeking advice in this forum, I didn't have high hopes of a resolution but thought it would be worth another shot. They have now resolved this issue and I have included information below which may be useful to others.

I contacted Severn Trent Water on 26th April. They responded on 17th May to say "As we have failed to address your complaint within 10 working days, you are due a payment of £25 under our Guaranteed Service Standards (GSS) – this has been refunded by cheque to ADDRESS". They also noted "I’ve looked through your account and can see that once the final bill and reminder reached your forwarding address you made the full payment, I’m please to let you know because of this I have spoken to our credit reporting team and updated the credit file between February 2018 and June 2018 to a natural query “Q” code."

When I initially asked Severn Trent to look into this case in 2019 I was told that there was nothing they could do so if anyone has gone through something similar and it is still causing issues on their credit file, I'd recommend reaching out to them again.

@cwilk3 Glad to hear that this got resolved. Modifying it to 'Q' is what they did for my client as well when he formally complained about a series of missed payment markers going all the way up to 6 while a billing dispute was in progress. It delayed his remortgage for a few months. It seems like a common occurence with Severn, well done on pushing back.