Energy back bill over 12 months

kkgbd2223

Hello, looking for opinion/advice on this please….

I have a property which I had rented out to tenants. The tenants signed up with an Energy supplier and paid their bills. The tenants then executed the "break clause" in their tenancy agreement to end it, correctly paid and closed their energy account. All good.

I put the property up for sale, I then contacted the same energy supplier to set up an account and gave them all of the dates and meter readings from when the previous tenants moved out. I thought that this had all been completed and set up correctly.

After some time, I noticed I had not been sent a bill from the energy supplier so I contacted them who explained that the supply had been switched to another supplier! I then attempted to contact that other second supplier without success.

After some investigation, I've found out that the letting agent who I secured the previous tenant through had instructed the energy supply switch, which the second energy company executed all without my knowledge and permission. At no point did the original or second energy supplier notify me that a switch had been requested. This instruction occurred after the tenants had moved out, ended their tenancy agreement and closed their energy account and my contract had ended with the letting agent. So the reason I could not contact the second supplier was because the letting agent had been named on the account and not me, so the second energy supplier would not accept contact from me.

This has gone on for some time, over 12 months now, during this period, not once have I been sent a bill, email, anything in the post, cards or anything similar, and no contractor of that second energy company had attempted to visit my property to obtain meter readings. The second energy supplier is claiming that they had sent bills to the letting agent, however, that letting agent has made no contact with me.

For the avoidance of doubt, my contract with the letting agent ended at the point the tenant's notice period expired. The contract was only for a simple "tenant find" and "rent payment" service, it was not a full management contract. I am not aware of any clause in my contract with them that I gave them permission to switch energy supply especially when "out of contract".

More than 12 months have now passed, I would like to understand where things stand:

• Am I entitled to £40 compensation for the energy switch which was completed without my permission?
• Am I entitled to refuse to pay any amounts due that are over 12 months old?

Ofgem's website says:

Our back billing rules mean you do not have to pay for energy you used more than 12 months ago if:

• you’ve not had an accurate bill for it before
• you’ve not been told about what you needed to pay through a statement of account before

Many thanks.

MWT

Assuming that the property has remained empty since the previous tenants moved out and you put it up for sale, it would seem that the letting agent has accepted liability for the energy use, which is very generous of them :)

You are not owed compensation for the energy switch as it seems your name was never on the account as the agent got in first with their switch.

Similarly neither supplier would have had cause to contact you as your name was not on the account in the first place.

I can't see from your post if you have contacted the letting agent, as that would be the obvious thing to have done, have you actually done that?

Back-billing rules are not likely to be much help as your name doesn't appear to have been put onto the account before the switch took place, and from what you have said, the new supplier has been billing the entity with their name on the account.

kkgbd2223

Many thanks for getting back to me. Some more information……

I was only able to speak with the second energy supplier today, 22nd September, to ascertain what had happened, so no, I've not yet had a chance to speak with the previous letting agent. The previous letting agent had not paid any of the bills so there's now quite a large debt.

The second energy supplier has now sent me the complete set of bills from when the switch took place, these bills have a note "Date Generated 14th September 2026" which was obviously last week. These bills do appear to be in my name and have my correct correspondence address on them (which is not the same as the supply address). At no point had I given the second energy supplier my correspondence address, so this must have come from the letting agent. Also, the original energy supplier that I set up with did have my name and correct correspondence address.

So it appears that the account/bills had been set up in my name with the correct billing and correspondence addresses, that what I was told on the phone that it had been set up with the letting agent may not have been correct. Therefore, I would have thought that the back-billing rules now fully apply as they had the correct name, correct address and at no point sent me a bill or statement of account.

Thanks.

MWT

All you know at the moment is that the new supplier had your name and address last week, if they had it a year ago you would have received bills before now, so you do need to establish when they were given your name and address.

Just to be clear if the back-billing rules do apply, as you mentioned above, they only invalidate the part of the bill that is over 12 months old, so while useful it may not compensate for being stuck on a tariff that you may not have chosen for yourself.

I'd still want to talk to the agent to get their version of what happened, not least because their actions may have left you with a larger bill than necessary. Agents have been know to switch accounts to expensive suppliers offering switching incentives …

QrizB

So it appears that the account/bills had been set up in my name with the correct billing and correspondence addresses,

Or alternatively, the second energy company changed the account into your name and address on the 14th when you contacted them.

kkgbd2223

I contacted them on the 18th and spoke with them on the phone today the 22nd. So bills were generated before I contacted them.

squirrelpie

I'd be talking to your lawyer about your problem with the letting agent that has caused all this grief.