Does back billing apply here? EON doesn't think so

idkwhatimdoing

Hello! I'm sorry but this is going to be a long one.

I feel like it's important to mention this, but the person this is about is a very shy, awkward person with autism. They're a vulnerable person and can barely leave their house.

Their mother died a few years ago in 2020 and the electric/gas accounts were managed by the executor, who was then supposed to help transfer it to my friend. The gas account was successfully transferred in 2022 and it came with a giant debt. He instantly paid it off and has kept it paid on direct debit ever since 2022. The problem was that he thought that the electricity ALSO was transferred onto his name (why wouldn't it be?), but it never was.

There's an e-mail where EON mentions linking the two accounts together, but this never happened and he went on paying his DD never knowing that anything had gone wrong. The gas account was under his name, with regular readings being sent in, the address and e-mail and phone was all correct under that account.

It took until November 2024 for EON to send a person to his door (no letters under his name had been received until then) and the person did not even know who lived at this house, despite him paying the gas for years at that point. They took their reading, and told him that he has a massive debt on his account (which was created for him very soon after this.) This overwhelmed him and caused immense anxiety and despair over the fact that he probably isn't going to be able to pay off that debt anytime soon - and a week or two later they sent warnings saying that they're going to court if something isn't set up soon.

I have been talking to EON for him and we had a smart meter installed in his house. We started trying to argue that backbilling should apply to his case since he's never tried to avoid paying for anything, has never obstructed them or prevented them from getting a reading, and simply had no idea that anything had ever gone wrong originally. We have the e-mail from the EON agent saying the accounts would be linked together, we have letters from EON about his gas bills calling it "energy" (making him think it's one and the same) and sometimes even mentioning electricity, so he thought everything was fine.

Eventually we managed to get it sent to their "backbilling team" after trying for ages and having them constantly ask us for evidence and proof. We had to prove why and how we ended up in this situation, and we sent them as much proof as we could. The agent we had been speaking to for a few weeks assured us they would be getting back to us, and that they potentially had good news.

They never got back to us, and the £5,280.72 debt was reduced to £4,921.16 because we had received £359.56 in "Back-Billing Protection credit". This is important for later.

We had to call Eon again weeks later and found out through notes left on the account that we STILL need to pay for over a thousand days of £3.01 estimated per day of usage. They basically told us off at first until we started a complaint, but all that led to was them asking for all the reasoning, evidence etc again only to tell us that they'll take it to the backbilling team again. I was assured we'd keep contact with the same agent throughout the complaints process, but he was randomly replaced after one call in particular where he mentioned that EON could have done more to prevent my friend from ending up in this situation, and that the fault does not lie entirely with us. We were told that we could fill out a paylink form so that they can create a payment plan for us "just incase" and that was the last we heard from that agent in particular.

After that, they started repeatedly hounding us to set up that paylink budget form thingy and we DID give in and fill it out. EON got back to us telling us this: "Previously we have raised your account for a billing review and was awarded £359.56 as a write off from the debt. Unfortunately we are not able to send this for another review as it wont be eligible following the recent write off."

This is after they told us that the backbilling team would re-review it. It's been 2 weeks at this point, and it feels like they've been lying and lying to us, telling us that there's no backbilling team, that we can't speak to anyone from the backbilling team, that they exist but that it takes time to get responses from them, that they can't re-send it to backbilling after telling us that they would.. etc. 

It's really frustrating and I don't know what to do. They seemingly just expect us to end the complaint now and want to give us £50 in compensation after 5 months of this. 

I'm sorry if my grammar wasn't great and if it was slightly incoherent, I've just been angry about this ever since we received that e-mail telling us that they can't do what another agent promised they would. I've linked them ofgem's rules on backbilling and case studies that sound very similar to ours, but they pretty much just ignore it whenever I mention that saying that they don't know much about it and that it's for the backbilling team to deal with.

idkwhatimdoing

the title should say "does ofgem's backbilling rules apply here?" but i messed up.

MWT

What does the Executor have to say about the failure to transfer the electricity account to him?

Were bills still being sent to the Executor?

MeteredOut

Separate to the electricity not being charged for, if the account was in debt at the time of your friends mothers death, that debt will have lay with the estate, not her son. If the estate did not have the funds to pay off the debt, it would have to be written off by the supplier.

Was transferring the account to the friend, with the debt, the right thing to do? Did the son live with his mother prior to her passing?

Is the son on the Priority Services Register with the supplier?

Have you considered taking the issue to the Energy Ombudsman?

MWT

MeteredOut said:

Separate to the electricity not being charged for, if the account was in debt at the time of your friends mothers death, that debt will have lay with the estate, not her son. If the estate did not have the funds to pay off the debt, it would have to be written off by the supplier.

Was transferring the account to the friend, with the debt, the right thing to do? Did the son live with his mother prior to her passing?

Again this is one for the Executor to answer, but if there was a house in her estate it seems unlikely that it could just be written off, and transferring the debt along with the house would probably be the sensible approach, but if it is a rental then not of course.

sheenas

The executor of a will is legally responsible for settling the deceased person's debts using the assets of the estate. Your friend should not have paid anything and should ask for the money back. Regarding the outstanding bill, if there was no letters for twelve months there is nothing to pay surely?(legal principal). I don't see anyone would just turning up and read the meters then say you owe money. You need to understand who they were and why that happened. In any event I would refer all queries back to the executor and let them sort it.

MWT

sheenas said:

The executor of a will is legally responsible for settling the deceased person's debts using the assets of the estate. Your friend should not have paid anything and should ask for the money back.

... as above though, if the principal asset in the estate was the house the friend was living in then I doubt they would have been grateful for the Executor selling the house to settle the debt, better to assume the debt and keep the house..

sheenas said:

Regarding the outstanding bill, if there was no letters for twelve months there is nothing to pay surely?(legal principal).

There are the back-billing rules which may or may not apply, there is also the matter of consumption of the energy which includes a deemed obligation to pay for that energy in the case of a new account, what other principles have a 12 month limit?

MeteredOut

MWT said:

MeteredOut said:

Separate to the electricity not being charged for, if the account was in debt at the time of your friends mothers death, that debt will have lay with the estate, not her son. If the estate did not have the funds to pay off the debt, it would have to be written off by the supplier.

Was transferring the account to the friend, with the debt, the right thing to do? Did the son live with his mother prior to her passing?

Again this is one for the Executor to answer, but if there was a house in her estate it seems unlikely that it could just be written off, and transferring the debt along with the house would probably be the sensible approach, but if it is a rental then not of course.

Agreed, by "any funds to pay off the debt", I meant "any assets to pay off the debt", and that would include the house (if owned) and if that was the only asset, it would make sense to ask the beneficiary to pay the debt from their own funds rather than forcing a sale.