Advise on what to do with not receiving the gas bill for years and paying it off

EmergencyVisitor

Hello,

I would like some advice on how to proceed in my current situation. As I will be moving from current house and I don't want to leave landlord/next tenant with a huge bill or get into a court for this.

So here is my story. I moved into a house in 2013 as a tenant. I've registered myself to all the utilities I could apart from gas. I've been told by the letting agency that my Gas supplier is British Gas. So I've called them, but they couldn't do anything as they claimed they are not my supplier. Then I had a multiple calls to National Grid to ask who is my gas supplier again, they insisted it's British Gas. I've been in contact with British Gas multiple times again to register myself with them but they claimed they are not my gas supplier and I need to figure out myself who they are first. The landlord also told me that my supplier is British Gas. I was going in circles between British Gas and National Grid. Then after multiple calls back and forth with British gas they told me that I should wait for the bill to come through and then start paying. Bill of course never came through... I tried reaching them again later on as still no bill (I think it was a year later). The answer was still the same... Frustrated then, I completely forgot about it till now... As I am about to move from the house in a few months, I don't want to get billed thousands of pounds because of the issues on their side. I am about to call British Gas and explain my situation to them again. Not sure if they will reject me again. Does anyone know if I am liable for thousands of pounds for the past 8 years of gas bills? As I mentioned before I don't want to leave this on the next tenant or landlord. How do I proceed with this situation?

I also recently checked online recently on findmysupplier.energy and it still doesn't tell who my supplier is!

macman

https://www.findmysupplier.energy/webapp/index.html
What result? The property may be shipperless.
Back-billing rules will apply if you can demonstrate that you have made reasonable efforts to establish the supplier.

spiro

You say you moved in in 2013, over what period did you try to contact them given it is now 2021? Do you emails etc to prove these contacts given how long ago it was? I

EmergencyVisitor

@macman No results through that link. All the neighbouring houses have results, but mine doesn't... 

@spiro I haven't got any prove emails as was calling them. I've contacted them in period of 2013 and 2014 with lots of calls. Hoping they got all calls stored which they record for proof.. 

Now after reading this I've got a feeling they will say that my effort was unreasonable to establish the supplier. So will have to pay full amount which I've calculated is around 3.9k £ (if price per kWh - 4.43 pence)... Which is a lot for us...

 I also hope they will get us on board which I worry they wouldn't again!

Tokmon

EmergencyVisitor said:

@macman No results through that link. All the neighbouring houses have results, but mine doesn't... 

@spiro I haven't got any prove emails as was calling them. I've contacted them in period of 2013 and 2014 with lots of calls. Hoping they got all calls stored which they record for proof.. 

Now after reading this I've got a feeling they will say that my effort was unreasonable to establish the supplier. So will have to pay full amount which I've calculated is around 3.9k £ (if price per kWh - 4.43 pence)... Which is a lot for us...

 I also hope they will get us on board which I worry they wouldn't again!

Well considering you were able to take regular meter readings and knew you weren't being billed then surely you have put this money aside ready to pay the bill?.

So the only issue you have now is that if you do get any bill make sure the meter readings are correct. That you only pay what you legally require under back billing rules (i hope you have kept a regular record of meter readings over the years!). But also make sure they charge you the cheapest rate over that time as you didn't have the opportunity to switch to a cheaper tariff.

dogshome

Seems that BG have lost the plot - Despite being a BIG supplier, they area not the sharpest knife in the box as other posters have found

True they can argue that you should have made more efforts to contact them and you don't have an Email trail for the contacts you did make, but the flip side of the coin is that over seven years they have made no effort to contact or bill on an Estimate basis to a Domestic account that they 'Own' as the registered supplier.

On this basis you are entitled to claim Back-Billing relief which restricts BG to only billing for the past 12 months, and that 12 months is calculated back from the date the do manage to produce a bill.

WRITE a letter to BG headed Complaint and post it by Royal Mail at a post office getting a FREE certificate of posting, setting out  the contact history

This sets off a Complaint Procedure that BG must follow by the terms on their operating license, the first step of which is that they must acknowledge the letter and issue you with a Compliant Number