UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hello to all

Without going into a long story as this would take all day, I need some advise please.

I evicted a tenant, the reason was identity theft (mine), non payment of rent. She then went on to trash the house. The house is in the UK, I'm in Australia. Some of the repairs have been done, however, today, I was advised by a tradesperson that they were unable to continue with some of the repairs as there is a "prepaid electricity meter" in the house and it has 150 pounds of arrears on it.

Firstly, the property never had a meter installed when the tenant took up residence, secondly, the tenant never asked permission for this to be installed and thirdly, I need the repairs done now as I'm coming over to the UK in a week to finish off.

I don't even know which electricity company she was registered with. I intend to find out by making some calls late tonight.

Am I as a landlord expected to pay this debt or will the electricity company wave the debt and set up the electricity account in my name, remember I don't live in the UK.

Any advice, help is most appreciated.

Thanks

As a Landlord you are not liable for the utility bill debts of your Tenant, no.

It would probably help if you were able to provide full details of the Tenant, including new address / contact details etc., to the utility company. They will say they want the debt to be repaid, of course, and they may try to get you to cover it (but they really should not) and they may pass on the debt to a debt recovery company - imagine big men at the door with an ID badge. Again... the debt is not yours. The utility company will not simply waive it (very unlikely, anyway) but as long as you have cast-iron proof you were not resident and using the juice, you cannot be liable. After all - simply put - you are not liable, right?

Realise this is after the horse has bolted, but in my AST I have a clause that specifically says the Tenants are not allowed to change the meters without the written consent of the Landlord... obviously your consent was never sought anyway... but at least if it is done then it is a breach of the tenancy agreement. However, it does seem like you had bigger problems with your Tenant.

I have just had this on three flats, all £140 plus in arrears.

I just called up EDF and they sorted it out.

They give you a code, you take the code to the shop, they give you a key, you pop in the key it wipes the debt, you take the key back to the shop, put £20 on it, take it back plug it in and you have electric.

Long winded but no big deal.

It's normal.

Thank you both for your advice. I am suspecting the tenant has either tampered with this meter or she had it  installed because she was in electricty debt.  I'm still trying to find out which electrical company  she was registered with.

What I don't quite understand is, how can a meter go into £150 arrears, surely the electricty company wouldn't allow arrears to go that far if electricty was being purchased via a meter.

There are two ways.

1. You dont pay your pay your normal bill, they put in a prepay and add the debt on so that every week you pay an extra £2 or so off your debt.
2. The standing charges keep adding on whether you put money on it or not. Current standing charges on those meters are about £100 a year.

Dont stress it, just call up any supplier with your address and that you want to use them on this meter and it will be sorted out ever so easily, promise, dont stress, it is not a big deal at all........

Thanks everyone

So I made a few calls after doing a search on google and found the electricity supplier - they were really good but I did have to provide a lot of info via email ie deeds for the house, utility records that proved I wasn't living in the house between the time she was evicted and now and what made it hard is the fact that I live in Australia not the UK - so I was up very late at night making the calls.  Fortunately I was able to give permission for a relative to act as my representative and the debt has now been wiped.

Anyway yesterday, the tradesman who is working on the house  (a new gas fire is being fitted) found the gas meter and yeah, suprise suprise - the meter showed that the gas is 245 pounds in arrears, so I had another long night of making phone calls to the UK, trying to find who the supplier was etc the gas company who the tenant was is Scottish Power and my were they rude, I was put on hold for over 45 minutes, they at first tried to insist that I pay the bill, anyway they sent an engineer around to the property (the awesome tradesman went to the property to meet him) and all the gas debt has been wiped.

Again - thanks for all your help and advice.

Good news, excellent.

Allot of the utilities in the UK are rubbish at customer service.

I have just changed all my accounts to EDF, not because they were cheapest, but on calling them about 10 times in 3 months, they always answered the phone and the staff were really helpful!

On the other hand N Power are a shower of shit.

I concur about npower... shocking.

I phoned them up to chase for an amount they owed me after I moved out of a property. I chased them on this three times (they really didn't want to pay me). I then received an email thanking me for getting in touch with them to change my name! Muppetry.

Well, Harrist, sometimes the company install the prepaid meters because the tenant doesn't paid.

I hope you will have luck with your tenant. It could be possible that the tenant will say the utility bills are included in the rent.

You can't have £100's owed on a pre pay meter unless it was set up like that from the start, i.e changed to cover non prepay meter debt that hangs over.