Bord Gais

messrs

Hi Not sure if im in the right section here, so apologies if im not

i recently bought a house with a bord gais connection, the meter was blocked by credit control in bord gais as the previous owners were not paying there bills. now im been told by them i need to pay a 'unblocking fee' of €148.64 before the will re connect me, to me it sounds like im paying of the previous owners bills, - any thoughts?

Paulw

Is it a fee, or a deposit they want?

Tell them you're not prepared to pay a fee, for their issue, but you are willing to pay a refundable deposit.

messrs

Its a unblocking fee - unless i pay this the wont switch the gas back on and its non refundable and then i either get set up on DD or pay €400 deposit which is refundable after 7 months if all my bill are paid on time but if any paid late i dont get it back.

Beano

well if you have just bought the house you need to contact your solicitor. Any outstanding liabilities on the house should have been taken care of as part of the sale.

jimoc

This is really something that should have been checked out by your solicitor before the sale went through.
Its part of their job to ensure that there are no outstanding debts associated with a property before a sale is finalised and the fact that the gas bills are not paid and now prevent you from getting the service is one of those things.

You could either get onto the owners if the sale is not finalised and make them pay it, or your solicitor or get Bord Gais to install a new connection.

messrs

i got my keys few weeks ago but not living there yet, Brod Gais are telling me its nothing to do with previous owners bill but just standard fee the charge to unblock if previous ppl did not pay bills, i was just wondering if this was a fee i shd have to pay or if anyone had heard of it before

Paulw

You should tell them that if they don't unblock it without a fee, that you will seek another supplier or source of heating. Call their bluff.

messrs

the whole street is all gas supplied, dunno if id get another supplier in for just me

Awful Scut Mk2

messrs wrote: »

the whole street is all gas supplied, dunno if id get another supplier in for just me

As far as I understand, you could switch to Flogas quite easily.

Paulw

http://www.flogasnaturalgas.ie/

Contact them and see.

Joey the lips

If you look at the back of a board gais bill it specifically says that when moving house if the resident fails to notify board gais they become liable for any gas used up to notification. By default the presious resident is responsable. Contact your solicitor then contact someone more senior in board gais. If you do not get a result ask for somewhere up the chain. If your getting nowhere contact consumer affairs or the ombudsman if one exists for gas.

Max Power1

Awful Scut Mk2 wrote: »

As far as I understand, you could switch to Flogas quite easily.

I have .. works fine.

The charge is actually a BG NETWORKS charge, not a BGS charges, as such it will be charged no matter what supplier you pick (although it is at your supplier's discretion as to whether or not they pass the charge on to the end customer)

the_barfly1

I believe the office of the energy regulator is your man here, even a mention of going to Enreg while talking to bord gais should be enough to get them to forget that stupid fee

foggy_lad

when the previous occupant left the gas supply was "capped" or disconnected and there is a fee to reconnect the supply as there is with the esb.

messrs

Tnx for all your replies, i got on to the citizens advice and the put me on to CER and the told me it is valid charge so i have to pay it:mad:
seemingly its to cover the call out fee for the Engineer who has to come out to turn it back on again.
same happened with ESB they had knocked of the supply but the reconnected no hassle and didnt charge me any fee at all.:)

tatli_lokma

they don't just lock the meter for non-payment but also if the meter is not being used, so often in an house which was empty they will lock the meter to prevent unauthorised usage.
Its the same principle as eircom charging you to connect a line a previous occupant deactivated. Doesn't matter that its not your fault the line was deactivated, if you want to use the service you have to pay to reactivate the line.
Its sucks, but as you have been advised there is nothing you can do about it.

Davy

messrs wrote: »

Tnx for all your replies, i got on to the citizens advice and the put me on to CER and the told me it is valid charge so i have to pay it:mad:
seemingly its to cover the call out fee for the Engineer who has to come out to turn it back on again.
same happened with ESB they had knocked of the supply but the reconnected no hassle and didnt charge me any fee at all.:)

Look on the bright side, least you didn't have to fork out the €104.49 for the esb reconnection aswell

Kimono-Girl

i was in your situation two years ago when i moved into an apartment, they tried to charge us a fee to unlock the meter as we had no gas, i just kept insisting that i was not going to pay it and i wanted compensation on top of it for all the phone calls i made and for being without appliances (everything was on the gas cooker/shower...etc) ....it took weeks of calls and arguing that they were at fault for chasing us instead of the previous occupent and penialising us by withholding our supply, in the end they re-connected me and credited me the 'unlock' fee as compensation...