The Lemon Fool

We inherited a shop in 2012. The shop has been rented out more or less full occupancy since then.

In 2023 we received a letter from "eOn-Next", addressed to "The Occupant" along with a demand for £1500+ relating to the supply of gas to the shop.
The letter had been posted in the wrong letter box (ie not the post box for the shop but for the flat upstairs which we also own) so we picked it up.

Naturally we made enquiries as to why we should receive a gas bill "now".

1. When we inherited the shop in 2012, the meter had been disconnected..BUT, the meter is still on site.
2. We have never received a bill for gas nor a bill for a standing charge.
3. None of our tenants have mentioned any previous letters regarding a gas bill.
4. The meter reads 99999.
5. None of the tenants since 2012 have used gas at the property (as the meter was disconnected when we took on the property and no one has used it).

E-on records say that the bill was racked up by a former tenant and they (eventually) mentioned her name. They state that the bill was from September 2019...she had left 4 years earlier and the property was rented out to another tenant from 2015. We have provided the front sheets of the tenants rental agreements to show this. Now e-On want addresses for all tenants, past and current.

I am not sure if I can legally provide this data under GDPR (eOn themseleves did not wish to divulge names). I doubt if one of the tenants is still at her old address anyway. The tenant that eOn names was very good with her payments so I doubt she ran up bills.

All we want to do is get rid of the meter and have invited eOn to do this. We have no contract with eOn.

They can't get the money anyway under the back-billing regulations. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/check-energy-b ... ling-rules

monabri wrote:We inherited a shop in 2012. The shop has been rented out more or less full occupancy since then.

In 2023 we received a letter from "eOn-Next", addressed to "The Occupant" along with a demand for £1500+ relating to the supply of gas to the shop.
The letter had been posted in the wrong letter box (ie not the post box for the shop but for the flat upstairs which we also own) so we picked it up.

As a landlord I would often get bills and demands for tenants who had left, presumably having not paid their final bills. I did not bother to do anything with them since they were not addressed to me. This would happen with gas, electric, water, phone and council tax.

So even if this bill were genuine and current, I do not see it is as your problem.

JohnB wrote:They can't get the money anyway under the back-billing regulations. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/check-energy-b ... ling-rules

Thanks John, we were aware of the 12m back billing rule. We contacted CAB and they advised we would be in breach of GDPR if we divulged our tenants details (I don't fancy being sued).

When we spoke with E.On, we enquired as to when they had last received any payment on the account. The representative on the phone said their records were in a mess and she couldn't see any receipt of payment.

We have written to E.On to say that they, or their agent, disconnected the meter and padlocked the supply before 2012 when we inherited the property. We have asked them ( 2nd time) to remove the meter and we have raised a formal complaint.

( if it goes to deadlock then we will then escalate to the energy Ombudsman).

Lootman wrote:

monabri wrote:We inherited a shop in 2012. The shop has been rented out more or less full occupancy since then.

In 2023 we received a letter from "eOn-Next", addressed to "The Occupant" along with a demand for £1500+ relating to the supply of gas to the shop.
The letter had been posted in the wrong letter box (ie not the post box for the shop but for the flat upstairs which we also own) so we picked it up.

As a landlord I would often get bills and demands for tenants who had left, presumably having not paid their final bills. I did not bother to do anything with them since they were not addressed to me. This would happen with gas, electric, water, phone and council tax.

So even if this bill were genuine and current, I do not see it is as your problem.

True, but we now want to get rid of the meter . We want to close the issue before we sell the property. The letter from Eon arrived in March 2023 and it might cause problems.

monabri wrote:

Lootman wrote:As a landlord I would often get bills and demands for tenants who had left, presumably having not paid their final bills. I did not bother to do anything with them since they were not addressed to me. This would happen with gas, electric, water, phone and council tax.

So even if this bill were genuine and current, I do not see it is as your problem.

True, but we now want to get rid of the meter . We want to close the issue before we sell the property. The letter from Eon arrived in March 2023 and it might cause problems.

Beware removing meters.

Whilst you know the gas pipe is of sufficient size /spec etc to supply a meter, and your gas supplier currently knows this, as it is supplying gas, once you have it removed if you ever want another gas meter it will :

1. Have a cost, sometimes heavy.
2. They may insist on new pipework from street which can be expensive as the fact it worked fine previously through the pipe will just not cut it.

We had a block of flats with pipework in and sub meters, we rented out the flats for fifteen years, when we came to sell the flats we needed to split out the supplies, logic said replace our sub meters with utility company meters and leave all pipework, no, not acceptable, all pipework removed, new meters and pipework installed, also had to do similar re electric, £150,000 of costs later we had it done. (with 27 flats that was over £5,500 each)

We now have some offices where gas is not used yet we keep the meters and pay the standing charges just to keep the supply live, if removed it might from experience be very expensive to fit back later.

Charlottesquare wrote:

monabri wrote:True, but we now want to get rid of the meter . We want to close the issue before we sell the property. The letter from Eon arrived in March 2023 and it might cause problems.

Beware removing meters.

Whilst you know the gas pipe is of sufficient size /spec etc to supply a meter, and your gas supplier currently knows this, as it is supplying gas, once you have it removed if you ever want another gas meter it will :

1. Have a cost, sometimes heavy.
2. They may insist on new pipework from street which can be expensive as the fact it worked fine previously through the pipe will just not cut it.

We had a block of flats with pipework in and sub meters, we rented out the flats for fifteen years, when we came to sell the flats we needed to split out the supplies, logic said replace our sub meters with utility company meters and leave all pipework, no, not acceptable, all pipework removed, new meters and pipework installed, also had to do similar re electric, £150,000 of costs later we had it done. (with 27 flats that was over £5,500 each)

We now have some offices where gas is not used yet we keep the meters and pay the standing charges just to keep the supply live, if removed it might from experience be very expensive to fit back later.

Yes, because a new install has to comply with the current and much more strict building codes. Old installations are fine as long as they were to code at the time of the install. In other words, old build is grandfathered in.

Lootman wrote:

Charlottesquare wrote:Beware removing meters.

Whilst you know the gas pipe is of sufficient size /spec etc to supply a meter, and your gas supplier currently knows this, as it is supplying gas, once you have it removed if you ever want another gas meter it will :

1. Have a cost, sometimes heavy.
2. They may insist on new pipework from street which can be expensive as the fact it worked fine previously through the pipe will just not cut it.

We had a block of flats with pipework in and sub meters, we rented out the flats for fifteen years, when we came to sell the flats we needed to split out the supplies, logic said replace our sub meters with utility company meters and leave all pipework, no, not acceptable, all pipework removed, new meters and pipework installed, also had to do similar re electric, £150,000 of costs later we had it done. (with 27 flats that was over £5,500 each)

We now have some offices where gas is not used yet we keep the meters and pay the standing charges just to keep the supply live, if removed it might from experience be very expensive to fit back later.

Yes, because a new install has to comply with the current and much more strict building codes. Old installations are fine as long as they were to code at the time of the install. In other words, old build is grandfathered in.

In other words be very careful solving today's issue with an expediency that might come back and bite your ****

At long last, eOn have admitted that they were wrong and zeroed the current (now £1854) bill, issued a full £30 (thirtypounds) compo payment in the form of a credit note on a completely separate eon account which is in our name (!) to cover the hassle & stress and the 30 emails back and forth to their Energy Specialist colleague (no mention of calling off the ballif letters though) and promised it won't happen again.

Seems that when they changed brand name from "eon" to "eon Next" the computer had a wobble and went on a rampage of issuing bills - I call BS on that one!

However, getting them to drop the hassle was due to getting the Citizens Advice Bureau Extra Help Unit involved - they could talk one to one with someone more senior at eOn than the person I was dealing with by email. I summarised the emails back and forth (10 pages - with photos) and provided the CAB with a 2 page summary.

Trying to deal with the "eOn Next Energy Specialist Team" via email was a complete waste of time. Their "Energy Specialist" representative

- deliberately ignored the 12m charges carry back rule

- could not find letters that eon Next had sent me where it stated in march 2023 that we had been in the property for 6 weeks (and then applied a £1473 bill)

- made up a bill using a date from 2020 which applied standing charges for 2.25 years to try to justify the large bill

- sent a ballif's letter despite being in communication with them to try to resolve the issue

- Despite several warnings from us, they insisted that we break GDPR rules (potentially subjecting ourselves to a large fine).


How many folk would have just paid up? Why are eon next ignoring rules (12 month charge carry back/ making bills up/ asking landlords to break GDPR regulations?).

...If it is of any interest, I dropped E.ON as soon as I could, after they proudly announced - without any warning - that I was now welcome to their brand new, exciting E.ON Next account.

Seems likely I made the right choice...

‘Unbelievable’: E.ON’s rogue legal action ruins family’s finances

The Guardian

An error by the energy supplier resulted in a reader being unable to switch mortgage or use an overdraft

"If you think you’ve had a bad experience with your energy supplier, spare a thought for Helen Kane*. Because of E.ON, the 43-year-old has a county court judgment (CCJ) on her credit file, which means she is unable to switch lenders, adding an extra £2,400 a year to her mortgage payments."

"Kane is not the only person to be on the receiving end of E.ON’s service failures. In June, the energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, ordered the firm to pay £5m in compensation to more than 500,000 customers for “unacceptable” call services."