UK Landlord Forum / Life

I've heard of this, but it's the first time that it's ever happened to me.

I checked a Tenant out on the 16th and new Tenants are moving in on the 20th, so I phoned nPower (no prizes for making good choices there) to give them the new information and they tell me that the property has been moved over to Spark Energy just today and can't progress the change of details.

I self-manage the property. I didn't even do Tenant Find with an Agent this time. nPower asked if the new Tenants would have done that - I can't imagine that they would have done - they've not moved in yet, they're not supposed to change suppliers without informing me (although I do not try to ban them from doing that).

So... who's given Spark Energy authorisation for this? The $64,000 question.

I'm on the telephone now trying to find out... started at number 65 in the queue, now at 28... time will tell (I hope).

Turns out it was an Estate Agent who did the transfer.

How interesting that they can do this... an Agent could do this for any property. There are no checks or authorisations needed, it seems. They get a finder's fee or kickback from Spark Energy.

I've now had to initiate an "erroneous transfer" procedure, which means the property won't be billed by Spark Energy and it will return to nPower, in due course.

What a palaver.

Presumably this means any Joe Soap could do this for any property ?

Presumably. Although the company in question being a Letting Agent might hold some sway... I guess... but there's no checks undertaken that they, for example, manage the property on my behalf - which they don't / didn't / never have / never will. That said, Spark Energy seem known for this and it's somewhat unscrupulous so I'm betting they're happy and willing to take the 'instructions' as they come in.

I find it a strange situation and open to some abuse.

This seems utterly preposterous.Presumably an unethical energy provider could themselves directly hijack contracts? Did your outgoing tenants use this lettings agent for their next place,giving them the information they could act upon?
Never experienced anything like it,but I have been annoyed several times when tenants have been told they can have prepaid meters-hate them-without  their landlord's consent.   

I don't have any understanding of what the outgoing Tenant might have done, I'm afraid. It just all seems very opportunistic by this Letting Agent. I have written an email to their office, but I expect no reply - as, I mean, I'm not a Landlord of theirs, and I have no actual name of who initiated the switchover; simply a company name, no-one like Jane Smith or anything like that.

They keep telling us that it's easy to switch energy suppliers.

Maybe it's too easy.

The erroneous transfer will take around 6 weeks to complete. 

That's shocking.
However, good luck with N Power.
Our bill for a recent void period was NIL because of their appalling "customer service".

Yes, I think NPower stand out on their own.  A cockup by a guy fitting a meter to a neighbouring house meant that my reading and my neighbours were both based on his meter.  The difference between my last meter reading and the first one on the new metre was £2000.  And NPower tried to Direct Debit it.  Worse was that it took 18 months of almost daily phonecalls to resolve.  I was getting a debt collection letter every month from them.  It was sorted following a discussion with customer service .... until the next month, when another debt collectors letter arrived.

Incompetants the lot of them.   I will not go near them.

And I am woefully off thread