Worried I will end up in prison!

[isitfree]

I bought a house 3 years ago and did not receive an electric bill so after 5 months I got in touch with the company the previous owners said they had, turned out no electric company had ever had anyone with an account at my address. It is a private new build and has never been registered as receiving an electric supply. I then found out the council did not know the house existed and no council tax had been paid in the previous 10 years that the original owners had it!
I have managed to register with the council now and the person who rates the properties came out to value it for council tax. HOWEVER I can not get any electricity company to register us for an account.
The electric is coming from somewhere but no bill has been paid for 13 years!!! I even phoned the national grid and was told "oh dear, the previous owners have really dropped you in it" What the hell do I do?

Sorry - hadn’t made it to the end of the thread so missed your update. Good to hear you’re on the way to getting it resolved OP.

@gofg

OP does not know her Meterpoint number.

That's still odd - my unique number is on my meter!

Our meters have a serial number, and that is matched to the Meterpoint on industry records.

But meters can be exchanged or damaged, and the Meterpoint remains the same. If you have a single detached house, with only one customer, you will just have one Gas, and one Electricity, Meterpoint.

If, however, you are in commercial premises, or you are in a block of flats or a subdivided house, or have a granny annexe or a business shed, there may be several meters at the same address, and each has a unique Meterpoint number.

At one time I worked in this part of the electricity industry. I have actually put my own labels showing my Meterpoint numbers next to the gas and electricity meters. Very occasionally, suppliers ask what they are. There is not usually a label.

Amusingly, (?) some places have a Meterpoint but no meter. If they have an Unmetered Supply, such as a street lamps, which are charged differently.

This happened to my friend at her rental in London . She was there 4 years and nothing turned up .

You will not go to prison for this IMO . Document all the steps you've taken

You have proof of phone calls etc that you've been chasing this up. You've done your bit, its the utility company who's cocked up. Don't panic, you haven't done anything wrong.

@FlouncingBabooshka

Tempting as it might be to follow the advice from several PP’s to just sit back and enjoy your free energy, my big worry would be what happens if you suffer a major power cut? How would you get reconnected without a supplier?

I would do as @travellinglighter recommends OP - she clearly knows what she’s talking about.

Hope you get it resolved.

she?

I'd take the current meter readings on a mobile phone, not a hand-written record.

I'm jealous!

Great update.

@isitfree

BIG UPDATE !!!

After all this time, I have just received a call from someone who knows what they are talking about. I will be provided with an MPAN number and when I receive it I have to give a meter reading and will only be charged from that meter reading to the next reading. So basically starting my reading from zero. It looks like I have another month of free electric first as they say it will take 28 days.

Whoo-hoo!

Can I plug in all of my appliances to your meter? I have my own extension lead.

Apologies @travellinglighter. Making assumptions with my pronouns…

Amazing and correct result !

I don’t understand how the house is not registered. Your solicitor should have done searches against the property, title deeds and registered energy suppliers. I know this as I moved recently. If you have a council tax bill the house must be registered. I would check back with your solicitor or conveyancer

They can't bill you for anything over 2 years!!!!

Great update. My dad had five years of bills he didn't pay as he kept chasing them and they said he didn't own anything...I had two and as a gesture of goodwill they wrote off the 28 days we owned as both bills were over two years. Honestly no idea why companies don't respond to you asking for bills so you can pay them!

We had this situation where our house had somehow got taken off the grid. We thought we were paying both gas and electric together but were only paying gas.
We only realised when were moving house. We tried for ages to get the house registered but no one seemed to be able to decide which supplier the house should take it on. Anyway in the end we didn’t have to pay anything back as it wasn’t our fault.

Your solicitor really should have picked up that the property wasn't registered with the local authority for council tax. If nothing else somebody should have noticed this when they did the local authority searches, surely.

There is no way you will end up in prison.

@FOJN

Is there a meter? Did you take a reading when you moved in? If you've kept a record of your calls and have tried to sort the situation out then I don't think they can hold you responsible for not paying a bill you have not received. Just make sure you don't end u paying for the previous owners. I would also contact the Solicitor who handle the purchase, I seem to recall completing documentation with details of utility suppliers when I've sold a house and received similar documentation when I've bought a house. The estate agent would usually require info about council tax banding too so I think you have been let down by a few people who have not done their jobs very well.

as above

As part of the TA6 that your solicitor should have asked for from the previous owner, section 13 asks for "connection to utilities and services". Its here that the Utility providers name should have been provided

Check that

Did you take a pic of the electric meter the day you moved in, pic should be dated. If not do it now. The supplier is unimportant as all electric comes of the grid, try the people who supply your gas and get someone out as soon as possible to check the meter etc

sorry just caught up with thread

Not read thread in full but your property and the meter are in limbo somewhere , it happens more often than you think , you should have a mpan number on your meter and you can use that to register as a new property but if national grid don't recognise it then your just getting free electricity!, I work for an energy firm and it's harder than you think to register new properties and supplies and so much red tape that I would say there's thousands of new builds that aren't registered

You've done nothing wrong, you will only owe from the day you moved in did you take a meter reading? You might be able to search the meter number to find out who was providing the electric

Can’t you just say you’ve moved into a new build and want to start an account? This would match with their records of there being no current supplier.

Maybe it has already been flagged but your solicitor should have identified the problem with the council tax

Call your electricity distributor not national grid. You can find who covers your area if you Google your postcode and speak to the MPAN enquiry team. They'll help.