Electricity Billing Issue

dav32cs

Hi All

We are having problems with an electricity supply issue. I'll try be as brief and descriptive as possible as I had a big post typed and when I went to post it, it timed out....

We moved from an old address approx 6 months ago. My partner notified all our billing companies about this move and our new address.UPC,mobile phones etc went through all OK. We are with Bord Gais and use the level pay and do €55 a month and are on the paperless billing too so we weren't expecting any paper bills to this address.

For four months the €55 came out but on the 5th month they took over 200(around 225 I think). When this was queried they said that it was to catch up because we had fallen behind and said it would go back to 55 for the next month. On the 6th month they again took over 200 and when this was queried the second time it was found that we were still registered as paying to the old address and not paying anything off the new house.

They said they would credit us the difference if we could get the letting agency to supply a letter stating when we moved out and the final meter reading from the previous house. However, when we contacted the estate agents they said that because the landlord had moved back in so quick they had not been able to go out to get this final reading.

Now Bord Gais are saying that if we do not have the meter reading they cannot credit us anything, despite the fact we have paid over 600 since moving out!

To make matters worse, our agency must have supplied our details to the supplier at the new house when we moved in and Electric Ireland are now saying we owe them over €600 . When the situation was explained to them they are refusing to budge and insisting we must pay them over €300 immediately if we want our supply to continue or else they will disconnect us.

I have suggested two options which I think are reasonable:

1) Get Bord Gais to get the first ACTUAL reading they did on the old property AFTER the date we have moved out. Take this away from what the meter reading was last month(when we were still paying up to at this address) and credit us the difference.

This is obviously good for them also as if they did not do an actual reading for a while after we moved out they are still getting this period from us. Hopefully if this was the case the would also backdate an estimation to the date we moved out and put this on our credit.

We would then use this credit against our usage at this new address and continue with BG.

This is our preferable option as it means no big cash output just before Xmas and what we have paid the last 6 months will come off our usage here.

However,Electric Ireland are now 'blocking' BG from becoming our supplier here, presumably because of the debt we owe them on paper from the previous 6 months at this address.


2) Work out a payment plan with EI for the debt, get Bord Gais to take over as supplier from today and put our credit against our usage going forward which means we maybe get a few months from now using our credit.

This is our least preferable option as it means a big output of 300 to keep EI happy just before Xmas, but it will eventually even out for us sometime next year when our credit runs out with BG( and is dependent on if we get the credit off them).


Few questions to clear up before going forward to try and sort this out:

1) Can Bord Gais refuse to give us any credit at all even though we have been paying them for the last 6 months if we cannot give them a meter reading from when we moved out? They can't possibly say that this 600euro was owed up to our moving out date in the old house(especially if they just compare against any reading they have taken at the old house since we have moved out)

2)Can Electric Ireland 'block' BG from taking over as our supplier here?

3)Can Bord Gais retrospectively take over as our supplier here from our moving in date 6 months ago or can this only be done from today?If we could back date the start date with Bord Gais to our moving in it just means we could put any credit we may get towards our usage and be up to date with everything.

Also, if we can get it done this way, how do we get Electric Ireland to stop sending us this 'double' bill and threatening to cut us off? Will they accept if we show them we are with Bord Gais and are paying them back to the move in date or will they continue to try and recover the debt as they might claim they have been the supplier from then until now even though we never agreed to sign up to them in the first place?

In a worst case scenario EI will continue to ask for the 600+ debt for the previous 6 months and BG will refuse to credit us for anything we have paid them in the last 6 months (also 600+) meaning we will have paid over 1200 for 6 months by the end of things which is crazy. How much of a negative effect does it have on a credit rating if we refused to pay the EI debt??

Thanks in advance

slimjimmc

Wow, if you consider that brief I'm not surprised the original post timed out!!!

So essentially what you saying is (correct me if I'm wrong)
Your BG meter reading wasn't submitted before the move and therefore your contract was not terminated or transferred properly and you're currently paying for the new occupant. You also have been somehow signed up to EI in the new place for the last 6 months but have not received a bill in that time until they informed you of a €600 debt.

D3PO

its seems clear you never closed your account at the old address, because if you didn't take a meter reading then you couldn't have done so.

So BG are correct they cannot refund you as unless they have a reading they have no idea what the situation was when you moved out and cannot get whoever moved in to pay for it.

if you didn't close the account you are responsible for the usage. Harsh as that sounds thats the situation.

So the only way I can see you getting some of the money back is if BG took an actual meter reading at some point after you moved out, coupled to that proof that you moved out they may then be in a position to do something, although that would be all on a goodwill basis.

No EI cannot block them taking over as supplier assuming you haven't signed a contract with EI, in which case you would have to pay your outstanding debt and a breaking fee to get out of any contract you entered into, although it sounds like you did not enter into one and therefore can change supplier.

No you cannot have a supplier take over retrospectively, if you want to use BG then you need to switch to BG and only from when that occurs will they become your supplier with their tarrifs etc.

in a nutshell you have made an unwittingly big error by not closing your account and you are responsible for both the bills you reference as a result.

dav32cs

slimjimmc wrote: »

Wow, if you consider that brief I'm not surprised the original post timed out!!!

So essentially what you saying is (correct me if I'm wrong)
Your BG meter reading wasn't submitted before the move and therefore your contract was not terminated or transferred properly and you're currently paying for the new occupant. You also have been somehow signed up to EI in the new place for the last 6 months but have not received a bill in that time until they informed you of a €600 debt.

Hi

Yes thats pretty much it and no, we didn't get the meter reading as the estate agency said they would deal with it but now they have said that landlord moved back in too quick for them to get it. BG were notified of the new address a couple of days before the move and the new house meter reading once we moved so it confuses me as to why it didn't flag earlier on their system or they didn't contact us seeking the final reading long before now.

D3PO wrote:

its seems clear you never closed your account at the old address, because if you didn't take a meter reading then you couldn't have done so.

So BG are correct they cannot refund you as unless they have a reading they have no idea what the situation was when you moved out and cannot get whoever moved in to pay for it.

if you didn't close the account you are responsible for the usage. Harsh as that sounds thats the situation.

So the only way I can see you getting some of the money back is if BG took an actual meter reading at some point after you moved out, coupled to that proof that you moved out they may then be in a position to do something, although that would be all on a goodwill basis.

No EI cannot block them taking over as supplier assuming you haven't signed a contract with EI, in which case you would have to pay your outstanding debt and a breaking fee to get out of any contract you entered into, although it sounds like you did not enter into one and therefore can change supplier.

No you cannot have a supplier take over retrospectively, if you want to use BG then you need to switch to BG and only from when that occurs will they become your supplier with their tarrifs etc.

in a nutshell you have made an unwittingly big error by not closing your account and you are responsible for both the bills you reference as a result.

No we didn't enter or sign up to EI at all, but I wonder is it standard in agency contracts that they are allowed to do this on our behalf and this is how we ended up being billed by them?

I presume if we contested this 'signing' up we would at least have some argument as we were signed up by a third party rather than doing so willingly ourselves.

Going on the advice so far looks like we will be trying to get BG to give us as much credit from our 600+ as possible, but it also looks like we are stuck with EIs bill because even if we do contest it and refuse to pay it on the basis of us not signing up to them, I presume this will cause problems with us and the estate agency because the bill from the current address over 6 months will fall back onto them or the landdlord......

Venus In Furs

Get on to the landlord of your previous address and see if they'll accept having the charges you paid after moving out, billed to them.
Set up a payment plan for usage at your current address. You have to pay someone for this usage - how have you not got a bill until now? You probably got registered automatically by the letting agent because if you weren't, you'd be disconnected.

slimjimmc

Venus In Furs wrote: »

Get on to the landlord of your previous address and see if they'll accept having the charges you paid after moving out, billed to them.
Set up a payment plan for usage at your current address. You have to pay someone for this usage - how have you not got a bill until now? You probably got registered automatically by the letting agent because if you weren't, you'd be disconnected.

Agreed. I would imagine the landlord would be experienced enough to have taken his own meter reading when the OP moved out and may be willing to confirm this reading to BG. Although unlikely it could be possible the old address is being double-billed.

Venus In Furs

Not possible to double-bill. I'd say the landlord conveniently "forgot" that the last tenant (i.e. the thread-starter here) didn't take the bill out of their name. This is the tenant's responsibility for sure, but a bit of decency by the landlord and taking over the account isn't too much to ask.

dav32cs

Agency has tried to contact the landlord for the original house to no avail - it was his first time to let out the house(it was a family home) and then he decided to move back in about 8 months into the contract so only way we would be able to get in contact is to door knock and even then it's just the chance that he took the meter reading when we moved out.

Was rummaging through drawers and found some sort of connection letter from when we moved here and we obviously must have gotten bills in since then but that'd be a separate rant altogether about the woman then because all the post would come in when I'd be at work..... half saying she wasn't even looking at them when they had Electric Ireland on them because she thought they money we were paying BG was for this house but sure you'd still want to know why EI are sending bills in that case but you know....

If we get credit back off BG for what we've paid and just work out a payment plan with EI and pay what we usually would pay each month everything will just be as normal till it's cleared but it's dependent on a)BG giving us the credit and b)EI being OK with the payment plan.

D3PO

dav32cs wrote: »

Hi

Yes thats pretty much it and no, we didn't get the meter reading as the estate agency said they would deal with it but now they have said that landlord moved back in too quick for them to get it. BG were notified of the new address a couple of days before the move and the new house meter reading once we moved so it confuses me as to why it didn't flag earlier on their system or they didn't contact us seeking the final reading long before now.

Its not the agents responsibility to close your account, nor does a call to BG saying you are moving mean anything. You are responsible to close your account end of story. You didn't do it.



No we didn't enter or sign up to EI at all, but I wonder is it standard in agency contracts that they are allowed to do this on our behalf and this is how we ended up being billed by them?

They are allowed to do this, it prevents tenants not signing up. If you didn't sign up the bill would be in somebody elses name and you could claim no responsibility for it.

I presume if we contested this 'signing' up we would at least have some argument as we were signed up by a third party rather than doing so willingly ourselves.

contested it on what basis. You used the electricity, its correctly billed in your name so you have nothing to contest. If you didn't want to use EI then you should have signed up to another provider. Ignorance is not an excuse

Going on the advice so far looks like we will be trying to get BG to give us as much credit from our 600+ as possible, but it also looks like we are stuck with EIs bill because even if we do contest it and refuse to pay it on the basis of us not signing up to them, I presume this will cause problems with us and the estate agency because the bill from the current address over 6 months will fall back onto them or the landdlord......

Good luck with it, Im not trying to be harsh in my response but you really need to accept you are responsible for this situation. Your an adult and its up to you to make sure you do these things correctly and not expect others to do things for you.

if you refuse to pay based on your misguided notion that you didn't sign up your utilities will get cut off, simple as that. The bill will not fall back on them or the landlord its in your name.

clint_silver

just to clear up something, have you been paying the bills for the old property which the landlord of the old property is living in?

In which case he was liable for roughly 600e of (or whatever)? not the utility companys problem but Id approach the LL and ask nicely for a compromise on an estimated bill. If he flatly declines saying your bad then its small claims for me.

Yes it was your oversight, but he has been using it in which case its arguably theft if he decides to not pay for it.

slimjimmc

clint_silver wrote: »

just to clear up something, have you been paying the bills for the old property which the landlord of the old property is living in?

In which case he was liable for roughly 600e of (or whatever)? not the utility companys problem but Id approach the LL and ask nicely for a compromise on an estimated bill. If he flatly declines saying your bad then its small claims for me.

Yes it was your oversight, but he has been using it in which case its arguably theft if he decides to not pay for it.

SCC against whom? He can't take the LL to the SCC to recover his money since that's beyond the remit of the SCC.
http://www.courts.ie/courts.ie/Library3.nsf/PageCurrentWebLookUpTopNav/Small%20Claims%20Procedure