Rented Property Energy Bill help

jarosm

Hello all, wondering if someone could help.

I have been living in a rented property since March of 2022, until now. I live with 3 other tenants, and only me and one other person have been here the whole time since that initial move in date. There have been 3 others who have come and gone during that time.

Since moving in, dealing with the energy bills has been a constant struggle to sort out as I'll go on to explain. The house is one property, but I believe used to be two separate properties a few years ago, and is reflected in the fact our address is known as both "ground floor" and "basement". Since the move in date, we have had a direct debit set up through British Gas paying a standard tariff as per normal, however we would always get unmarked "occupier bills" that would just pile up and pile up.

I would go to British Gas and try to explain to them that it's only one property, we pay for a tariff already, you need to stop or delete this account as we're paying already this makes no sense. This has been going on for almost 2 years. Not to go off on too much of a tangent but British Gas's customer service have been woeful and atrocious, and many emails, live chats and phone calls have been had where they'd confirm the closure of said accounts, but to no avail and I'd still find my self having to get in touch with them, and even getting to a point where it's been raised to ombudsman to help. That's another story entirely..

I raised to my landlord about the potential clash of us having to pay 2 different electrical bills but she pretty much dismissed the idea of helping as it would "cost too much to join into one meter" and that I should "find a way to reduce payments or switch suppliers" this was raised probably around early July of 2024 this year.

I managed to get an engineer out to fit a smart meter to the property to make a more conscious effort of our spending habits, but when he turned up he was completely confused by the setup of the houses meters. Figured out there was two meters, both for the same property, or labelled incorrectly - he then assured me he's turned one of the meters off but to contact British Gas to remove the decommissioned one as we could still pay standing charges. He also confirmed one property shouldn't be paying for two tariffs and two meters.

Long story short, there is now legal letters addressed to the landlord saying £4000 is owed between the timeframes of our first move in, until November 2023. So i'm stressing out a bit, as i'm the main tenant who's been left and lumped to deal with these bills, will I have to pay as it was technically "my responsibility"? Will any of the other tenants that were living here have to pay? Is it all the landlords responsibility for not addressing the issue first hand and making changes to the property before renting it in the first place? Any help is appreciated! I hope this made sense.

TLDR; a legal letter addressed to my landlord saying £4000 is owed due to unpaid energy bills between 2022-2023, as a tenant i've been trying to deal with the energy bills and an account the whole time, found out recently that the meters weren't technically set up correctly in the first place, who's in the wrong

Voyager2002

So as I understand it, power supplied to the property is recorded on one or the other of two meters, but you have only been paying for the consumption recorded on one of these?

jarosm

Voyager2002 said:

So as I understand it, power supplied to the property is recorded on one or the other of two meters, but you have only been paying for the consumption recorded on one of these?

That's correct, to make matters more potentially confusing, there is a top floor flat above us with completely separate tenants, but all the same landlord. Since our time living here, we always get their post (the entrance to their flat looks like a fire escape so no posties ever go up it) we're not entirely sure they pay for any energy bills, and one of these bills we keep getting could include their usage, as we've never seen a bill for "top floor flat" which is what there address is named.

BarelySentientAI

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

jarosm

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

BarelySentientAI

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

Then, assuming that the supply to the top floor wasn't through that meter - if it was, then I would guess someone would have come knocking - there would be no usage on it.  That makes the bill standing charge only, and should be nowhere near £4000.

Have you opened any of the "to the occupier" bills?  Compare meter serial numbers and readings, and see if they say estimated.

400ixl

Your electricity bills from British Gas should have the meter number on them. Can you tie up which bill is for which meter?

jarosm

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

Then, assuming that the supply to the top floor wasn't through that meter - if it was, then I would guess someone would have come knocking - there would be no usage on it.  That makes the bill standing charge only, and should be nowhere near £4000.

Have you opened any of the "to the occupier" bills?  Compare meter serial numbers and readings, and see if they say estimated.

The occupier bills do say estimated, yes - i'm fairly certain they were also linked to the serial number which has since been switched off and now is only running on a standing charge, so I'm not sure how the house can still have and use power on two meters, but be charged for two, and then there still be electric when the one that's been racking up estimates is switched off?

BarelySentientAI

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

Then, assuming that the supply to the top floor wasn't through that meter - if it was, then I would guess someone would have come knocking - there would be no usage on it.  That makes the bill standing charge only, and should be nowhere near £4000.

Have you opened any of the "to the occupier" bills?  Compare meter serial numbers and readings, and see if they say estimated.

The occupier bills do say estimated, yes - i'm fairly certain they were also linked to the serial number which has since been switched off and now is only running on a standing charge, so I'm not sure how the house can still have and use power on two meters, but be charged for two, and then there still be electric when the one that's been racking up estimates is switched off?

You have no evidence that any power was used on the second meter.  In fact, the evidence you have suggests that power was never used through it since the conversion.

jarosm

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

Then, assuming that the supply to the top floor wasn't through that meter - if it was, then I would guess someone would have come knocking - there would be no usage on it.  That makes the bill standing charge only, and should be nowhere near £4000.

Have you opened any of the "to the occupier" bills?  Compare meter serial numbers and readings, and see if they say estimated.

The occupier bills do say estimated, yes - i'm fairly certain they were also linked to the serial number which has since been switched off and now is only running on a standing charge, so I'm not sure how the house can still have and use power on two meters, but be charged for two, and then there still be electric when the one that's been racking up estimates is switched off?

You have no evidence that any power was used on the second meter.  In fact, the evidence you have suggests that power was never used through it since the conversion.

I see, I really honestly appreciate all your help. Sorry it's my first time having to deal with bills, energy and estimates etc so my knowledge is non-existent. So these estimates that have racked up this whole time, to a meter that we now know was never even needed. They can almost certainly be disputed by the sounds of things, am I right in saying? 

BarelySentientAI

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

jarosm said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Not the landlord's responsibility and not British Gas's fault.

The engineer has also given you wrong (or rather extremely simplified) advice - there's nothing wrong with having two meters and two tariffs for a property.  It's unusual, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Has anything stopped working since the second meter was "turned off" (which isn't something you can actually do - they can be disconnected, a fuse can be removed, or a switch before or more usually after them can be turned off)?

No nothing has stopped working, everything appears to be working in the house as normal

Then, assuming that the supply to the top floor wasn't through that meter - if it was, then I would guess someone would have come knocking - there would be no usage on it.  That makes the bill standing charge only, and should be nowhere near £4000.

Have you opened any of the "to the occupier" bills?  Compare meter serial numbers and readings, and see if they say estimated.

The occupier bills do say estimated, yes - i'm fairly certain they were also linked to the serial number which has since been switched off and now is only running on a standing charge, so I'm not sure how the house can still have and use power on two meters, but be charged for two, and then there still be electric when the one that's been racking up estimates is switched off?

You have no evidence that any power was used on the second meter.  In fact, the evidence you have suggests that power was never used through it since the conversion.

I see, I really honestly appreciate all your help. Sorry it's my first time having to deal with bills, energy and estimates etc so my knowledge is non-existent. So these estimates that have racked up this whole time, to a meter that we now know was never even needed. They can almost certainly be disputed by the sounds of things, am I right in saying? 

It might take some convincing (depending on how long the estimates have been going on for), but the reading on the meter now should be way way lower than the estimate on the bill, wiping out most of the amount.  An actual reading should always override an estimate unless there is good evidence that the actual reading is wrong.  That's a condition of the supplier's licence.

There would still be the standing charge for that meter, which technically still racks up until it is removed, but you might be able to persuade the supplier to waive some of it based on your understandable confusion about what you thought was a defunct meter.

Having said that, if you've been to the Ombudsman about having two accounts and meters for the property, then I'm surprised that a lot of this wasn't already sorted at that point.