Vacated Tenants outstanding utility bills

DvB

We recently (last week in fact) had a troublesome tenant leave our apartment, thankfully they didnt leave too much in the way of damage etc. but we still have ended up having to pay out over €800 for new bits of furniture & other nasties when they finally vacated. Thankfully after replacing the damages bits & bobs & giving the place a good thorough clean we have viewed it & gotten new tenants who are due to take up residence at the end of the month.

The thing is, when up at the weekend sorting out the last few pieces we noticed the letter box in the communal area had been broken into, so anyway, despite the fact we need to get a new lock organised we discovered a pile of bills that would drop your jaw (27 envelopes in total).

We didn't open any sealed envelopes (we marked them as 'not at this address' & re-posted them) but a few had already been removed from envelopes & left there, of these open ones, there was an Energy bill of near €700, UPC bill of €600....(all marked for the correct address but in other peoples names (i.e. not the tenants names) with the new tenants about to move in, what's the situation with these? It'd be naive to think the old tenant will pay (the bills werent even in their names, but are these companies likely to chase us the landlords for these outstanding monies? Or yet again, will the new tenants have any issues when looking to create new accounts at this address with such large outstanding bills down for the same address?

If this has happened with previous tenants its been unknown to us as we've had no communication with any utility provider so was wondering where we stand?

Any help greatly appreciated.

mistress_gi

Well, the contract for the bills are with the named person, not anyone else.
Unless the electricity was cut in which case you have to pay to get it reconnected everything else falls to the old tenants. Just keep sending the letters back
Good luck with you new tenants, I hope you have better luck!

allibastor

DvB wrote: »

We recently (last week in fact) had a troublesome tenant leave our apartment, thankfully they didnt leave too much in the way of damage etc. but we still have ended up having to pay out over €800 for new bits of furniture & other nasties when they finally vacated. Thankfully after replacing the damages bits & bobs & giving the place a good thorough clean we have viewed it & gotten new tenants who are due to take up residence at the end of the month.

The thing is, when up at the weekend sorting out the last few pieces we noticed the letter box in the communal area had been broken into, so anyway, despite the fact we need to get a new lock organised we discovered a pile of bills that would drop your jaw (27 envelopes in total).

We didn't open any sealed envelopes (we marked them as 'not at this address' & re-posted them) but a few had already been removed from envelopes & left there, of these open ones, there was an Energy bill of near €700, UPC bill of €600....(all marked for the correct address but in other peoples names (i.e. not the tenants names) with the new tenants about to move in, what's the situation with these? It'd be naive to think the old tenant will pay (the bills werent even in their names, but are these companies likely to chase us the landlords for these outstanding monies? Or yet again, will the new tenants have any issues when looking to create new accounts at this address with such large outstanding bills down for the same address?

If this has happened with previous tenants its been unknown to us as we've had no communication with any utility provider so was wondering where we stand?

Any help greatly appreciated.

I had this problem many moons ago with ESB and UPC.
The previous tenants to me had left very large bills in the house unpaid.
I moved in and had to get them sorted. With the ESB they wanted me to scan a copy of the agreement and a copy of my passport to show I was a new tenant.

With UPC they said they would call out 4 times to me to put in the box and then never showed up. I ended up having to drop my passport, my new agreement and my old rental property agreement into them to show I was not the same people or connected with them. I would have got sky but it was same hassle with them also.

Graces7

My current landlord was left with rent owing and ESb and other bills when the previous tenants left. He thought HE had to pay and did so. He knows better now!