Whos liable to pay Utility bills for squatters

loubel

What makes you think dad has died?

RAS

BoxCarJay said:

We have finally managed to remove all of these illegal tenants so that we can proceed with selling the house. However we have been informed that we may be liable for the utility bills for this period.

The house was only in our name when probate was granted in September 2023. My question is who is responsible for paying the bills for the years leading up to this point considering the points above?

Appreciate you've been stymied by dad's caveats etc, but the starting point for checking who supplies gas and electric to the property is the Ofgem website. That has links to the Meter Point Administration Service (gas) and the Energy Network Association (electricity), both of whom could have told you who supplies the property, and no doubt their bereavement teams could talk to you. 

And that should have enabled you to get the bills assigned to the tenants.

newsgroupmonkey_

loubel said:

What makes you think dad has died?

This post at the top of the previous page....

Hoenir said:

Liability will be with estate of your late father. 

loubel

But the OP hasn't said his dad died. Just that he lived in the property after the owner died and he let out rooms to lodgers/tenants. 

The OP should really be talking to their sister, who was executor of uncle's estate, as she should know at what stage liability for utilities stopped being dad/tenants and became the estate or OP's.

It sounds like sister might have transferred the property to the OP with tenants in place, in which case liability would depend on the terms of those tenancies. From what the OP says there is a possibility that the tenancies were inclusive of utilities, in which case they became liable when they became the landlord. 

sheramber

Hoenir said:

Liability will be with estate of your late father. 

Not father. It was uncle who died and father continued to live in house for a time.