OVO filing a claim with Country Court against me, they are basing amount on an incorrect reading.

GQsm

I will try to write this in a concise way.

I own a property, I last lived in it 5+ years ago. Since then I bought a new property and moved into it.
My old property was been rented out and I used a managed letting service where I have no contact with tenants and do not go to the property.
Early 2020 tenants suffered financial difficulty not paying rent and I would guess all other bills too. They moved out and the property became vacant.
The letting agent sent me a "move out" document which includes the meter readings on it they took at that time (Sept 2020).
The property was in need of a lot of work and between waiting for decorators to become available, trades to complete works and the property to be advertised it was not occupied by a new tenant until Dec 2021.
I visited the property after the letting agent did the move out (Sep 2021) to inspect it, take pictures and work out the repair issues to resolve. The meter readings were as stated by the letting agent and I made sure the boiler was switched off. The house was not using any energy at all (no appliances that could be on standby, no security lights, etc).
I gave tradesmen keys during the 1yr 3month vacant period for them to do their work.
I visited the property in Dec 2021 to check all works were correct before the new tenant took possession, I took photos and a video of the meters.
I received "Notice of Court Action" at my home address last month May 2023, they were claiming £800 which did not seem right at all, I never received any information about how they came to that amount, no itemised bill etc. The notice came from a solicitor not them.
I called the number on the "Notice of Court Action" to try and resolve the matter. Long story short, the agents are in India, work from scripts and are completely out of their depth dealing with anything non scripted.
I was on the phone for 1.5hrs a lot of that on hold, the important piece of information the agent did tell me is that they logged a meter reading against the account in Nov 2020 that was greater than the actual reading taken in Dec 2021. They refused to accept a time, date and location stamped photo of the meter reading from Dec 2021 saying it was resized on the email, I said "yes my email client did that, I can send you the original one and not resize" at which point they said no we won't accept the original (They were basically just making it up as they went along).
They asked me for a photo of the current meter reading May 2023 which I obviously had to ask the tenant for. He provided this eventually but the physical meter was changed in Jun 2022 so it is a completely different reading and I heard nothing back from the agent I emailed.
I received a claim form last week for County Court, now for £1050 including interest and fees.

I would like to dispute part of the claim but OVO have never communicated with me, I have never had a bill or letter from them, just their solicitors, and I have never had any contact with them before last month when I first had proper contact over the phone with them regarding the matter.
I am not sure what I truly owe so can't enter a figure on the form to admit part of the claim.

Can anyone offer me any thoughts? I have a couple of days left to Defend, Admit or submit Acknowledgment of Service.

Jyana

Do you have the paperwork from when you were paying the bill during the time between renters still? I assume the workmen used energy, rather than the house using none at all like you claim. If not, you would still be paying the daily charge and reporting the meter not changing for each read? 

QrizB

If they've started small claims court action, you should probably follow that track.

There's a guide here:
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/CJC/Publications/Other+papers/Small+Claims+Guide+for+web+FINAL.pdf

You might want to start with the Acknowledgement of Service, then put together your defence.

Petriix

If they're claiming an incorrect amount, which you can prove with photographic evidence, and they have failed to respond to your reasonable attempts to resolve the issue then you will easily win in court and could potentially make a counter claim which could win you a punitive settlement if the judge agrees that they have been 'unreasonable'. A woman famously won £10k from British Gas in similar circumstances. Whatever you do, make a proper defence in court and don't let it happen in your absence, otherwise you will automatically lose. 

MWT

GQsm said:

The letting agent sent me a "move out" document which includes the meter readings on it they took at that time (Sept 2020).
The property was in need of a lot of work and between waiting for decorators to become available, trades to complete works and the property to be advertised it was not occupied by a new tenant until Dec 2021.

Did you set up an account in your name with OVO at that time, using the meter reading provided by the agent?

... or was the account held in the name of the agent?... hopefully one or the other and you didn't just ignore it for the following year or so while it was being renovated?

Raxiel

Did the Tennant have a picture from when they moved in? When they provided the recent picture, did the meter or the board its mounted on include a sticker with the final reading from the old meter? If it did and its legible, is that number higher or lower than the Nov 2020 reading?

SAC2334

Raxiel said:

Did the Tennant have a picture from when they moved in? When they provided the recent picture, did the meter or the board its mounted on include a sticker with the final reading from the old meter? If it did and its legible, is that number higher or lower than the Nov 2020 reading?

Electric meter exchanges have a card left somewhere on the board or near meter  ( or on the floor) with full details , date, old meter reading , new start 
 meter reading and old and new meter serial numbers 
Gas meter exchanges have a yellow sticky label attached with same details to the meter itself. Vital info on any meter exchanges but all these details are updated to the supplier electronically  minutes after the meter exchange anyway .
If you attend small claims remember this detail .Supplier may not even attend to small claims courts in my experience.

GQsm

Raxiel said:

Did the Tennant have a picture from when they moved in? When they provided the recent picture, did the meter or the board its mounted on include a sticker with the final reading from the old meter? If it did and its legible, is that number higher or lower than the Nov 2020 reading?

SAC2334 said:

Electric meter exchanges have a card left somewhere on the board or near meter  ( or on the floor) with full details , date, old meter reading , new meter reading .
Gas meter exchanges have a yellow sticky label attached with same details to the meter itself. Vital info on any meter exchanges but all these details are updated to the supplier electronically  minutes after the meter exchange anyway .
If you attend small claims remember this detail .Supplier may not even attend to small claims courts in my experience.

Not sure if the tenant took their own picture, I obviously have mine and I believe the letting agent who found and "moved them in" also recorded the meter readings, although I am not sure if they would have them still if I went back to them. The sticker you mention is just visible, the number on it is around the number I was told was submitted Nov 2020 but I can't remember the exact one as there was a lot of figures mentioned on the phone call and I couldn't write everything down fast enough. Myself and the agent just both agreed the Nov 2020 number was wrong as it didn't line up with the actual meter readings both before and after the vacant period. This is when it went to emailing photos they ignored.
At a push I could probably get the tenant to take fresh high res pictures of the stickers if I needed them. 

Today I called the solicitor who is acting on behalf of OVO saying I need the breakdown of what they are charging me for so I can offer the correct partial payment of what was being claimed.
They said they do little with these cases and it is the SSE litigation team I would need to speak to.

I called them and it turns out this team is South Africa based and when I asked to speak to a UK office, he said all litigation agents were in SA. It could be the same team I spoke to after the "Notice of Court Action" (the first agent and his team leader accidently unmuted me while on hold which is when I thought it was an Indian call centre but I am not familiar with the South African languages so could be the same team) but todays agent was definitely different.

Todays agent asked me for photos of Dec 2021 readings and the new most recent tenancy agreement which I have provided by email. He told me the amount they are claiming from me is based on a transferred balance from Spark Energy (I guess OVO acquired Spark) that may actually be an outstanding debt of the previous tenant (that left Sep 2020) plus a number of estimated readings during 2021 (which are obviously wrong).
He was keen to get me to agree a payment plan to halt legal proceedings (I think this is their usual script call or they are bonused on it) but I refused at this time saying I need to accurately know what I owe and I will pay that outright.
The agent was helpful and commented on the length of the call and complexity of the situation which they are not used to, but I have a feeling the assembly line litigation machine behind them is just going to carry on regardless in the background rendering these calls mostly ineffective. I asked for a detailed statement of how they have reached their claimed figure to be sent out so that I have something to defend against.
He said they would send this to the supply address so seems I'm at their mercy to actually honour my request and the tenant getting the information to me.