The electriity would have been supplied under a 'deemed' contract. These written in terms of the occupier(s) (any adult who lives in the property). As soon as you move in to the property and switch on an electric appliance the contract comes into effect and all occupiers become equally liable for the bills. It is sensible for a utility to put a name on the account to facilitate their business with the property but a named account does not mean that the contract is solely in that name. As soon as a person named on an account leaves the property then he ceases to have any responsiibility for bills except those he incurred during his occupation. Your post is anbiguous as to the facts of occupation and I have chosen what seems to be the most likely. 1) Your friend owned a property in which he was an occupant. He is responsible for any bills and arrears for the period up to 2) the date you moved in. You stayed 2 years and during this time you are responsible (as is he if living with you) for the bills and arrears for that period. 3) As soon as you move out you cease responsibilty for any further bills or or susequent arrears. Your friend has done a bunk. The utility is entitled to recover from you for the cost of electricity that was used in the property whilst you lived in the property - they cannot contact your friend but you were easily traced so they chose you. They cannot recover from you any costs or arrears for any period when you were not in occupation. It is their loss if they cannot contact him. So you must settle your period of occupation with the utility and they must bill you for the charges within the period of your occupattion. If you are satisfied that the bill is correct you must pay it - if you know where your fiend is you should ask him for half these costs. You are not responsible for anything else. I cannot but cooment that he is some friend if he is leaving you with the whole ness. An honouable course of action is to shop him to the utility if he refuses to pay at least his half share during any joint occupation with you.

Nothing more I can say Nottdlad !!! Great post.

We have only UW word that somebody visited the OPs property bearing a letter addressed to the occupier or the previous tenant. We know nothing further. The OP says that he did not get a letter addressed to the occupier or to him. If he had had a letter addressed in either of these two ways he would have opened it. Depending what the letter contained which could have been a) the date time and place of a hearing for a warrant. b) a date of warrant execution and a copy of the warrant c) threats If he had had a hand delivered letter addressed to the former tenant he would have either opened it or sent it back to UW. If he had opened he would have certainly have contacted UW. If he sent it back then UW have every reason to investigate which they did not do. If any letter was hand delivered to the OP address then something was bound to happen which would have prevented the very serious action by UW of forceful enrty to a property while the tenant was not present using a warrant that was unlawfully obtained. The alternative is that either UW sent no-one or that if they did send some-one that person did not post the letter through the OPs letterbox - he may even have visited the wrong property. In view of the severe legal difficulty that UW are now in and the fact that their staff are individually in trouble it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the visit and the letter are a complete fiction. Facts speak for themselves. a) UW broke into the OP's property without the OP being present and changed locks and meters. b) They did this on the basis of a warrant that must have been obtained unlawfully without the OP ensuring that he had a right to defend. No amount of loud protests from posters that there are mitigating circumstances to explain UW's procedural errors can change these facts and the OP should suspect the motives of those posters. Thiss disaster is overwhelmingly the fault of UW and there is no question that a court of law would find against them and demand restitution of the meters and award hefty compensation and costs against them. Having confirmed that the warrant was obtained unlawfully the OP should see a solictor and sue UW. There is no fear that this will cost anything. - I cannot see that UW could contemplate their action being reviewd in a court of law.

Yes I would like to see the whole bill. So my surmise that EON were the original builder's supplier using the buider's address hence no communications of any kind to your address has proved to be correct. You go to S&S to register with them. They check your address with NG and it is not on NG's database so S&S are free to supply you and do so to your satisfaction for nearly four years. Around Nov 2009 which is the date Eon have given they discover that they were the original supplier of your property and that no "valid" (rules is rules) transfer has been made to S&S. Suppliers are very territorial so S&S cannot be allowed to get away with "stealing" their customer S&S is forced to agree and pays the funds they have taken back to you. EON take over and though they have never billed they think that they can take over the whole account including meter readings and bills sent by S&S. This is pure fantasy The billing code makes it a necessity that supplier has sent bills to the corect address. To say that there was an erroneus transfer cannot mean that Eon sent bills to the correct address - because it is plain and obvious that only S&S sent bills to the correct address. It is not logical to say that because S&S bills were sent in error that these bills were in fact sent by Eon simply because they were not. So the billing code applies. Eon have made an error in insisting that the take back this account. They should have left it with S&S and there would have been no problem. You would have been quite happy and not harrassed. They will be involved in a argument over the billing code which however it comes out will cost them more than any profit they make on your account. I would think almost certainly when this matter is finally settled you will change your supplier and it would be ironic if that was back to S&S. Eon have won a jurisdiction battle but will lose the war. Madness. Whoever was the general who led them into this battle should be at the very least be retrained.

You have that wrong. The information that the OP as defendant must have is the date,time and place of any warrant hearing. They claim they sent such a person to deliver this by hand. The OP was out. No further attempt was made and certainly the subsequent breakin was a complete surprise to the OP. At tha time of this ineffectual hand delivery there was no warrant so there was 'no company instructed by UW to enforce the warrant'. Your post calls into question the whole of the OP's story and I think you owe an apology. UW SAY that they sent in February a prelitigation person around when the OP was in. If that had been the case it would have been grossly inefficient of that visitor not to have reported that UW had it totally wrong. I do not believe UW. It may sound crazy but you need to face up to the facts as should the utilities who steadfastly put out this nonsense about customer obligations. UW have an obligation to bill the correct people and not to take any legal action without ascertaining the facts of occupation. There are many ways of doing this not the least being effective home visits. They do not measure up to their obligations and excuse themselves by the nonsense of 'how can we possibly know of a new tenant unless we are inforned'. They should and must keep themselves informed and they must learn to read the signs. In this case they were clearly trying to bill and otherwise communicate with the old tenant without success. In this situation it takes only a modicum of suspicion to surmise that their tenant has done a bunk. Why did they not investigate? Do you honestly believe that the visit in February took place -if it had they would immediately have learnt the true situation. As you are a distibutor for UW (i.e. an agent) I advise the OP that any post from you is likely to be biassed.

There seems to me to be a serious problem in the system of distributors signing up new customers and being paid for it. These disributors have a vested interest in putting the best face possible on UWs product. Thay are in fact a hidden army of advertisers and will take every opportunity to boost the product. How many on this thread telling us of the virtues of UW are in fact distributors.? I would never take the advice of a single utility let alone their agents.

Of course you will not pay for UW 'unlawful' break-in and you are entitled to have your credfit meters reinstated. A visit to yourl local magistrate court is your next step to ascertain the details of the warrant and to claim it was unlawfully obtained Warrants are issued by a magistrate court. It is as well to know how they go about it. There are hundreds of applications for warrants every day and it is an enormous burden for the courts. If the application is defended a proper hearing has to be set up and reeasonable time scheduled. So it is a great relief for the court when applications are undefended (which applies in 99% of cases) and the courts have devised a system that allows undefended cases to be 'heard' in batches. The utilities collect their applications together say over a month ( there may be as many as 50). No defended case are included in the batch and if you turn up in court just before the hearing saying you wish to defend then the application will be withdrawn to be heard or not at a later scheduled date This will take ages and the utility who want quick payment will usually try another method of intimidation. Having ascertained that none of the batch is defended the utility's warrant officer presents them to the nagistrate who will issue defaullt (undefended) warrants after minimal enquiries about the whole batch. The magistrate must be satified that the defendant has had the opportunity to defend (knows aboout the hearing), that the details are correct and that there are no reasons such as children, old age and infirmity that precludes him/her by law form issuing a warrant. So the magistrate questions the warrant officer about all the warrants. How deeply she/he will enquire is up to him/her. The warrrant officer who has probably received his batch of applications that morning and in any case cannot know the details of each application will cross his fingers and answers these enquiries in a way that will obtain the warrants. He crosses his fingers because he knows full well that he is relying on a bunch of inefficient moppets when he says that everything in the application is correct and that the defendant knows of the hearing.. The warrant is granted. UW say that they sent a person round in February on a pre-litigation visit and that you were in. It is inconceivable that this person did not ascertain the change in tenancy and that you owed nothing. The details of the application would be completely wrong if his report was lost or ignored. UW say that they sent someone round to inform you of the hearing by hand but you were not in. Firstly 'by hand' why not by post.? They obviously had difficulty of communication with the last debtor tenant so to be sure a by hand communication was arranged, You were not in so why did they not arrange a further visit? Any communication from the court would have been addressed to the old tenant and readdressed to him in some way or another -you, the agent, the landlord or the Royal Mail. You were not given the opportunity to defend So on two counts the warrant officer 'lied' to the court about the application for your address. Moreover these untruths induced the magistrate to issue the warrant. In my book that makes the warrant unlawful and it should be voided or set aside. Once you have accomplished this UW have no leg to stand on and you can refuse their demands for any payment, demand resitution of your credit meters and demand heavy compensation. The papers and TV love this kind of story - involve them. Incidentally many people on this thread have said much about the reponsibilities of an occupier to inform a utility of his occupation. Whilst it is sensible to do so and your present problem would have not have occurred if you had informed them there is nothing in law or regulations which makes it your responsibilityy to inform a utility of anythimg. This is a problem that only arises with the adoption of deemed contracts and the utilities do not appear to realise that it is their responsibility by any means they have open to them (post, phone, visits to a property etc) to prove occupancy and not blame the customer if things go wrong. See the recent thread on this board started by kyjibos. 　

I agree with Nottslad. You will have to estimate the reading at the start of the billing code year. If you estimate it higher than you feel it should be this will automatically produce the 'lower calculation' that Nottslad mentioned. Do not worry about this - it is routine for utilities to make the estimate too low so that the bill is artificially increased. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

British Gas are rubbush. Their collection system appears to be totally separate from the rest of the organisation. I have had collection attempts when an account is seriously in dispute and DCAs involved after the dispute was settled and paid. In your situation it would be as well to phone National Grid asking them who they are recording as your suppliers for both gas and electricity. Make this an investigation of their system and make a record of their replies. Make 4 calls at daily intervals to test the system. a) give your full postal address only - you cannot access the meter. b) Gine the builder's plot address - again no meter number. c) Give the meter number only. d) make a genuine call with all the information you have. You may well find the answers surprising. a) either the postal address or the builder's address (or both!) is not on their database. b)The meter number is not on their database. c) the meter number is on their database but apparantly supplying a wrong address. NG do not do field work -they sit at computers- so they do not check that information given to them by builders and installers is correct. They do not have systems that check addresses,meter numbers or for duplications. The commonest causes of error are the inevitable change of address with newbuilds and mixups over meter numbers - this may be an error by the installers or mistyping by database input staff. If all checks out go after the suppliers.

I would be interested to hear their reply. I have now asked, quoting the Act, 6 utilitties for a copy of the deemed contract. I received a) 4 copies of Ts & Cs which said nothing about the 'ob;igations' of the customer to inform of occupation and to read meters. Ts & Cs are part of a contract only b) 1 reply "there is no written deemed contract". In other words " as there is no record of the contract we can tell you any lie that suits us and you cannot conttradict us". c) 1 no reply.

Bump

These days most utilities do not have standing charges for private consumers but load the extra payment onto the first fuel used each bill period. No usage = no charge. It seems to me outrageous that there is a standing charge for pre-payment meters. Complain to the regulator - they were supposed to be regulating these meters so that people on them were not charged more for their usage than those with credit meters.

There are instances on CAG where the Ombudsman has refused to act because the initial cause for complaint (not deadlock) is more than 9 months ago. So any complaint to the Ombudsman must be made before nine months even if there is no deadlock letter. The complaint could be in the first instance that no deadlock letter is forthcoming.

Suggest that you ask this consumer services guy for a copy of the deemed contract. I have asked six different utilities now for copies of deemed contracts. They do not have them. So a deemed contract could contain am obligation to inform them before you take up occupancy but if you they do not send you a copy how are you to know. Come to think of it how are they to know that they should send you a copy of a deemed contract if you do not contact them in the first place !! You turn on a switch or a tap when you tale up occupation and you have a deemed contract which is not printed and you are expected to know what it contains. They make it up as they go along and can do so as nobody has yet defined what a deemed contract contains. What nonsense.

The water meter belongs to the water company. If it is faulty is is for them to change it. But is it faulty? Nearly all water meters work by the water passing through pushing against a mechanism which turns the dials. If there is no flow through the meter the dials will not turn as there is no force to turn them. So if it is recording there is definitely water passing through the meter - it cannot record on its own. First if the meter continues recording usage when the mains tap is turned off then either a) There is a leak between the meter and mains tap. or b) the mains tap is faulty and still lets water through Second you say that the usage shown is continuous when the mains tap is turned on. There are two explanations for this appearance. a) you are observing the slow filling of a header tank which in turn services slow filling toilet cisterns. In most properties with routine water usage the header tank is almost continuously being filled up. This is normal. b) there is a leak within your property ie post your mains tap. The commonest leak is an overfilled header tank or toilet cistern (due to a faulty washer on the inlet control mechanism). Most overflow pipes discharge to the outside and the water loss is plainly visible but some overflow systems particularly in modern toilets may flow into drains directly and not be visible. Take the lids off and observe the overflow pipe when the cistern is full. - it should be well above the full level. Look for leaks everywhere else. You should check everything out before involving the water company otherwise changing the meter and testing it could be a waste of effort. If they replace your meter and tests show it is functioning normally you will have to pay. If the meter is recording it is working. It may still be over or under recording and so be faulty but you are not complaing of this.

It is all somewhat confusing -I think they are muddled or are trying to muddle you. The PDF format works very well indeed. Could you post anything on the bill into which Eon have inserted figures _ at the moment I have no idea what they are expecting you to pay! Page 7 will probably contain something more and Eon usually have a Page 1 which has a summary and the amount payable. Perhaps you will find it easier to post all 8 pages ( less the two you have already posted.). At the moment there is nothing to say that the Billing Code has been invoked. Two immediate observations. a) where did they get the meter readings from? Perhaps from S&S. I believe that there is now an overall database into which all suppliers enter readings.Nottslad could confirm. Perhaps they are using that. b) they say that the reading on 29 June 2006 is yours. Until recently you had no knowledge that Eon were involved so you did not give Eon this reading. Can you recall registering with S&S - at that time you would have given a reading to S&S. It might also be the builder's last reading either given to Eon or S&S. One of the puzzling aspects of this case is how S&S got involved. Normally a supplier only agrees to supply at the request of a customer - so can you recall requesting S&S to supply? If not it may have been your builder who made the request. When anybody asks a utility for a supply the utility will comtact National Grid to check that there is no other supplier. If the address given was the new postal address it may not have been on NG's database. So NG would register the new address to S&S -thus duplicating everything undertwo addresses.

Rebel11 is half right You will almost certainly be on a deemed contract simply because written contracts are a thing of the past. These contracts are not in anyone's name though for administrative reasons a name is often put on the account. Deemed contracts are with the occupiers and every adult occupier has the resonsibility to pay the bills -the legal term is joint and several responsibility. So assuming that you and your husband were the only occupants when the £1000 accrued the electric company can chose to take the whole £1000 from you or £1000 from your husband, The utility wiil choose the easiest option and this is likely to be you. That is one of the main criticisms of deemed contaacts - they are not fair in these situations. If since your husband left there is no other adult in the house you are respnsible for the bills. If you know where your husband is you can ask the utility to bill him and he may pay - I hope so - but they do noy have to do so. If things are amicable you might be able to persuade him to help out or even pay the bill himself..

Bank fodder is correct. I have found nothing in statute law or the regulations that says that a cutomer must register. I would interest to know the reply to your e-mail. Utililities often lie and this lie is usually to get out of the billing code. You appear to know your supplier when you moved but many newbuild occupiers do not. The selling agent does not know and the builder has forgotten or disappeared.. In any case he will have registered with a builder's address and now there is a full postaal addrees. You are advised to ring National Grid who will look up their dataase aand tell you who your suppliers are - mostly. "What is your address". You are proud of your spanking new address and give it. "That address does not exist". "Can you give us your meter number" either You are proud that you had the foresight to have this to hand so you give it. "that number does not exist- please check it". You check and " we do not have that number" (The number supplied has either been mixed up by the meter installer or has been entered on the database incorrectly etc. or your meters are in a locked box outside or a locked meter room and no keys are supplied - because that is expensive/insecure." NG know that they are disributing fuel to you and they will lose out if they have no supplier to collect the money so they tell you to contact a supplier of you choice and register. Some time later anything betwen 6 months and 10 years!!! later the builder's supplier sends you a very large bill and you will be in the centre of a demarcation dispute between them and your supplier (the one you have been paying) The builders supplier who will have been billing the wrong address will swear that you owe them this money because it is unlawful to continue to take or change supplys without registering even though only they knew they were supplying and somehow did not notice returned or unpaid bills. It is so obviously their fault but they still blame the customer.

Typical NPower When you say the warrant notice arrived do you mean that they have applied for a warrant or that a warrant has been granted by the magistrates court. a) warrant alreadyy granted. Were you informed the date time and place of any hearing. If not get onto the magistrates court and complain that you were not so infomed and therefore had no opportunity to defend. Tell that you have only been in the property for a short while and have proved this to NPower who persist in asking you to pay the last tenant's bill. if you were informed it is possible to have a default warrant put aside so it is worthwhile talking to the court clerk to see what you must do. a) warrant application only made. You should be informed of the date, time and place of the hearing. Go to the court 30 mins before the appointed time find NPower's warrant oficer and explain your situation and say that you will defend. Almost certainly the application will be withdrawn as there is no time to hear a defence at these rubberstamp default warrant sessions. NPower will then look very carefully at your case as they know you will be defending and they will find that they have no case. You will of course seek ccompensation from N Power for your trouble.

Which water company is it? Do they give a discount for direct debit payments? Either way at present it is probably not the best way for you to pay. They can suddenly take a very large amount if they have have a DD mandate so cancel the mandate with your bank and pay by standing order which you control. You have offered £5 per week off the arrears and they accepted this. So hold them to it. They require a further £7.88 per week to cover present consumption. That is £34 per month which is less than the amount you were paying by Direct Debit for your consumption. I think they have gone as far as they are likely to go. Court action will likely do you a favour as then a judge will say what you will have to pay which will probably be less than they are asking. They know this so though they may threaten court they will be will not go down that route You should look into possible trust funds. Are you on a metered supply? If not look into the posibility of fitting a meter - one advantage of a meter is that if you use less water you pay less so you can reduce bills by economising. Meters have to be fitted free of charge on request if it is possible If you are being charged on a rateble value or an assessed charge you should look into this as these figures may both be too high for the property you live in. Good job hunting - jobs for you both will cure this problem but get your water bills down now!

You seem to be all electric? I will assume that is the case. This quarter when the weather was reasonable your bill was £485 which is far too high for a well insulated 2 bedroome flat. The quarter before was £109 and this was far too low considering the abysmal weather we have had. £109 to £485 looks horrendous but there are explanations other than a faulty meter. (485+109)/2=£250 sounds a not unreasonable average for these two quarters - perhaps a maximum of £1000 PA. Mine for gas and eletricity is £1300 pa. So it may be that you should be looking carefully at that £109 quarter rather than going immediately for a faulty meter. This can be expensive if you are wrong. You have not answered various queries about estimated readings. Are there any which can affect the two quarters in question? Bear in mind that utilities usually overestimate readings as they get your money earlier that way. An overestmated reading at the start of the £109 quarter could easily show as a very low charge if a proper reading was obtained at the end of the quarter. An underestimated reading at the end of the £109 quarter could account for both the high £485 bill and the low £109. Equally it is possible that actual readings by a meter reader were incorrect or have been entered incorrectly by SE.. This is not uncommon. The only way to check this is to do the readings yourself. I send in my self read meter readings once a quarter and insist I pay to my readings. Do you have easy access to your meters? Are you able to compare the two quarters in question to the same quarters last year. I would expect them to be about 20% up - mine were. If after thinking this through you are sure that your meter is overreading and became faulty in the last quarter then write a letter of complaint (recorded delivery). Customer Services are universally useless except for the most minor queries.

I think this is incorrect. The distribution network up to amd including the meter is owned by the distributor. The utilities (supplier) pay the distributor for the use of the netwok, the meter and of course the wholesale cost of the fuel used. Often the utiliies will check or change meters but they do this in the capacity of agents for the distributor and often they employ agents to do this!!!

It seems to me that your landlord has installed a private meter which is measuring the usage of your cafe and he is reselling electricity to you. Your post suggests that you feel he may not be entirely honest with the measurement of your usage. Have a look at Factsheet 5 - Maximum Resale Price of Gas and Electricity | Factsheets | Letting Factsheets So it is against regulations for a landlord to profit from reselling electricity and he must show the bills that he is paying to a tenant. If your landlord is dishonest your present setup ia an open invitation to him to improve his cahflow at your expense by a) Misrepresenting the tariff he is on with EON b) charging you more than this tarriff so making a profit. c) tapping off electricity post your meter to use in his garage. If you are chary of tackling your landlord direct then the first thing you can do is to fit a meter in your cafe where the main supply comes from your landlord's meter - you do not need a separate supply. This should not cost a lot and your landlord cammot sensibly object - do not tell him anyway. This wiil quickly show up any chicanery as in c). Obviously if there are differences between your meter and his meter you will have to tackle him. a) & b) are more difficult. Perhaps you can tell him that your accountant (you do not need to have one) and the Inland Revenue are not satisfied with the significant variation in your electricity charges and that in future you need to show not only his bill to you but his bill from Eon which you are entitled by regulation to see. If he is dishonest this will certainly scare him - if he is dishonest he will probably not to be showing any profit he makes from you in his accounts. How do you pay him -cash or cheque.?

If you should get any correspondence or phone calls from a debt collector then there are two possible ways to go, Which you choose depends on whether you are intimidated by them or not. 1/ Ignore them totally. At the moment they are acting as an agent for NPower so writing to Npower cuts them out. Keep any letters which may be of use to you in a complaint to Trading Standards/OFT. 2/ Write one letter saying that there is no debt owing and then ignore them. If you realise that debt collectors are dishonest intimidation machines without the powers that they allege then you can stand back and watch their system as it unfolds - and laugh at them.

Who is your water company? I personally would not stand for estimated readings. It is nearly always possible to take your own meter readings and send them to the water company on-line. If you do this at quarterly intervals after the date you moved in you will get bills quartery in arrears and you should pay within 14 days. Ignore other bills even if they are based on the companies readings - you need to get them to understand that you are in control and will only pay quarterly in arrears using you readings. If you feel you must pay by a direct debit plan realise that this will be more expensive despite any discount they may offer. There is no way that a total usage of 21m3 can equate to a sewerage charge for 21m3. 95% of 21 is 19.95. You have already tried customer services on the phone without a sensible result. Write a letter of complaint and ask for a reply in writing,