Gas switch blocked by previous tenant's debt after moving into new flat

[iloabs]

Wondering if anyone else has been through something like this, I seem to be going around in circles..

I moved into my flat on the 18th august. I have been with utilita for my gas and electricity for about 8 years and wanted to stay with them so started the switch to move to them.

The electricity went through and I am now on utilita. The gas has failed and i got a text saying 'sorry, your current supplier has objected to your gas switch to us' so i called scottish power and asked why and they said previous tenant (who died in april) has a debt of almost 2k and they think their system is automatically rejecting a switch because of that. they just keep telling me to call utilita and tell them to try again, utilita keeps telling me to call scottish power because it keeps failing their end.

meanwhile i have no way to top up my gas as have not been sent any top up cards, scottish power keeps asking me for previous tenants details and account number which i don't know because he is dead and i didn't know him when he was alive!

is it utilita or scottish power i need to be contacting back? i called scottish power on the 18th to tell them i had moved in that day after previous tenant had died and the property had been empty since april, i also gave them a meter reading on the day i moved in, now sure what else i can do?

I had this exact thing with Scottish power and it was infuriating!!
I went back to Eon and asked them to try again and they said it was still blocked. This happened three times. I just kept calling Scottish power and telling them they were still blocking the move and it needed to be fixed their end. Took three attempts.
I will never use Scottish power.

I would ring and ask to speak to a manager escalating to the CEO if necessary. Quite often the staff don't have the authority to make the changes but managers can. Next step would be ofgen.
They should be chasing the estate of the deceased tenant by other means, not preventing you from switching.

FWIW I used to work in the water industry and when we had issues with taking on a new customer we would ask for the new owners tenancy agreement or mortgage completion statement to prove that they were a separate legal entity.

If this is a council tenancy you could try contacting your housing officer.