Tampered electric meter

chloe1705

We had a faulty electric meter which eon came out to replace, on arrival the found the meter had been tampered with and bypassed at some point they deemed it dangerous and a criminal offence and asked me lots of questions even though we knew nothing about it. Contacted landlord who wasn’t bothered so contacted estate agent.
The estate agent have in their records an electrical report which included the tampering from 2021 we moved in 2023.
We are looking to take this further but trying to find out if we have a good legal case for endangerment to life as this should have been reported to eon in 2021 when discovered.

LightFlare

chloe1705 said:

We had a faulty electric meter which eon came out to replace, on arrival the found the meter had been tampered with and bypassed at some point they deemed it dangerous and a criminal offence and asked me lots of questions even though we knew nothing about it. Contacted landlord who wasn’t bothered so contacted estate agent.
The estate agent have in their records an electrical report which included the tampering from 2021 we moved in 2023.
We are looking to take this further but trying to find out if we have a good legal case for endangerment to life as this should have been reported to eon in 2021 when discovered.

Generally, the legal system is designed for things that happened and not for things that might of and haven’t 

Unless any damage and/or injury has occurred then the answer is probably no case

Section62

chloe1705 said:

We had a faulty electric meter which eon came out to replace, on arrival the found the meter had been tampered with and bypassed at some point they deemed it dangerous and a criminal offence and asked me lots of questions even though we knew nothing about it. Contacted landlord who wasn’t bothered so contacted estate agent.
The estate agent have in their records an electrical report which included the tampering from 2021 we moved in 2023.
We are looking to take this further but trying to find out if we have a good legal case for endangerment to life as this should have been reported to eon in 2021 when discovered.

As LightFlare says - unlikely you have a case for something which hasn't happened and you didn't notice yourself.

Did the 2021 electrical report say the meter was dangerous, or did it just note the possibility of tampering?  Was the tampering active at the time?

chloe1705

Thanks for your replies.
I haven’t seen the actual report as yet, I just know that on the report is pictures of the tampered meter. I’m going to try and get hold of the report from the estate agent but they aren’t very helpful.

Section62

chloe1705 said:

Thanks for your replies.
I haven’t seen the actual report as yet, I just know that on the report is pictures of the tampered meter. I’m going to try and get hold of the report from the estate agent but they aren’t very helpful.

Did you take any pictures of the meter yourself - between moving in and when eon replaced it?

chloe1705

I have pictures of the before pictures the day they changed it. We hadn’t really been near the meter didn’t realise there was a problem until eon pointed it out.

HillStreetBlues

chloe1705 said:

We had a faulty electric meter which eon came out to replace, on arrival the found the meter had been tampered with and bypassed at some point they deemed it dangerous and a criminal offence and asked me lots of questions even though we knew nothing about it. Contacted landlord who wasn’t bothered so contacted estate agent.
The estate agent have in their records an electrical report which included the tampering from 2021 we moved in 2023.
We are looking to take this further but trying to find out if we have a good legal case for endangerment to life as this should have been reported to eon in 2021 when discovered.

What do you hope to achieve by taking it further?

chloe1705

Just for the landlord to admit they were in the wrong would be a good start, they have been a nightmare since we moved in and this is just a part of what we have been through. Never an apology or anything so we would like to to have to take responsibility.
Having eon turn up and treat me like a criminal was horrible. I was asked questions whilst being recorded. But all along the landlord knew about this and it should have been dealt with. We didn’t find out it was already listed in the original electrical certificate until after on had been.

anselld

Does the property have a current EICR for the electrical system.  
If the system has been tested and deemed “Satisfactory” by a qualified electrician I am not sure what else you expect the Landlord to have done.

chloe1705

It does now, it was done after eon came as they advised the rest of the electrics to be checked so estate agent sent an electrician and new report was done. The original report from 2021 shows pictures of the tampered metre and this was expired in 2024 apparently but I’m going to get copies from estate agent tomorrow. I expect them to have reported the tampered metre when told that it was originally bypassed and tampered back in 2021 it should have been sorted by eon back in 2021 instead of us being left with a dangerous metre.

bobster2

LightFlare said:

chloe1705 said:

We had a faulty electric meter which eon came out to replace, on arrival the found the meter had been tampered with and bypassed at some point they deemed it dangerous and a criminal offence and asked me lots of questions even though we knew nothing about it. Contacted landlord who wasn’t bothered so contacted estate agent.
The estate agent have in their records an electrical report which included the tampering from 2021 we moved in 2023.
We are looking to take this further but trying to find out if we have a good legal case for endangerment to life as this should have been reported to eon in 2021 when discovered.

Generally, the legal system is designed for things that happened and not for things that might of and haven’t 

Unless any damage and/or injury has occurred then the answer is probably no case

Well something did happen - someone tampered with the electricity meter. Which may constitute criminal damage - an offence which can be aggravated if the offender was "reckless as to whether the life of another would be thereby endangered".

However, we don't know who the offender was, the meter was not the OP's property - it's not even the landlord's property. It belongs to the electricity supplier. And the person who did the damage was not the landlord. So it OP doesn't "have a good legal" case against anyone.