British Gas - Money claim letter

sourcrates

Sounds like an N1 claim form, should be accompanied by a response pack?????

TommyTBFC

sourcrates said:

Sounds like an N1 claim form, should be accompanied by a response pack?????

Yes it has a response pack with it. Although it does say I can fill it in online too 

fatbelly

You can acknowledge service online and that gives an extra 14 days to put in a defence.

The timescale is (assuming issue date 1 June)

Issue date 1 June
Service date 6 June
Acknowledge by 20 June
Defend by 4 July

DankVielen

Not wishing to put you off delaying a response I would advise you first check the amount due is allowed to be charged

OFGEM has a rule about back billing, it can't go back more than 12 months.

You do not mention the situation regarding the actual gas consumption, here are some examples:

You left the property, took a read and paid for energy including that read, but BG came back later and said you owed money for a period way before that read was taken.

You are still in the property, have been paying by DD the amount that BG saw fit to charge you but now they can done a review of the account and decided you owe this amount, but it actually goes back more than 12 months.

You have a Smart Meter that has not been working and not providing the reads to BG and it has not been working for two years.

There could be all kinds of other scenarios, if an Energy Company wants to back bill you they have to show the reads were consumed in the last 12 months.  If there are no reads then they need to measure usage in the property for 12 months and use those measurements to determine what you used in last 12 months, then deduct what you paid for in last 12 months.  They can't charge you more than the difference as it would have been consumed longer than 12 months ago.

Obviously a smart meter is their installation and their responsibility to keep operational.  So many Gas meters fail to update the main Smart Meter and fail to record reads, it is their responsibility to make sure that this is fully operational and as above they can only bill you for what they can prove was used in the last 12 months.

If you have evidence of reads, a photo when you left or an email from you giving them the reads (which they did not dispute at the time) then they are not entitled to slap a charge on you, it could be a new resident or landlord giving them a fake read.

Once you have determined the data does go back more than 12 months ask them to use the proper procedure which is to escalate to the ombudsman, this is also a requirement of pre-action protocol practice direction, to consider mediation and ADR

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/pd_pre-action_conduct#3.1

3. Before commencing proceedings, the court will expect the parties to have exchanged sufficient information to—

(a) understand each other’s position;

(b) make decisions about how to proceed;

(c) try to settle the issues without proceedings;

(d) consider a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement;

(e) support the efficient management of those proceedings; and

(f) reduce the costs of resolving the dispute.