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?

Lol but bless you op, you won’t go prison for this.

There is definitely a time limit to what they can retrospectively bill you, one or two years - bacause they are so bad at sorting new builds out. If you move away for this length of time you are no longer liable for a bill. I would photograph regularly your usuage. In newbuilds, drying out etc, house builders can use a ridiculous amount of energy so you don’t want this in your average use.

Dh says have you contacted the DNO, distribution network operator, for your area ie SSE power and distribution. If you google dno you can find out who yours is, I think National Grid also list them.

Then you need to contact them and get your MPAN number and go from there.

Hope that helps..

Can not switch as they need to know who I am with at the moment and I have no idea

I'm not in the UK, but it seems you have an odd system! All electricity connections here have a unique number and from that number it would be easy to find who the supplier is. If there is no supplier (odd!!) then I can't see how you will ever get a bill, but surely this can't go on indefinitely, there must be some solution.

Happened to me in a house I rented in London, I'm still walking free ten years on

I wouldn't worry too much. Something similar happened with gas at an old property i lived in. We had free gas for 8 years. I tried to contact them many times (and kept records) Eventually they wrote to me with an account number. I called them, a very small back payment was agreed and a Direct Debit set up.

A friend and I had this issue once. We rented a maisonette, and though both the upstairs and downstairs flats each had a gas and electricity meter, we couldn't get anyone to charge us for the electricity. Literally for love nor money - we called everyone, and obviously let the landlord know. Downstairs was often empty or the tenants were elusive about their own situation. Eventually we had to conclude that we'd created the best paper trail we could and just sod it. If I owned the place I'd probably be even more persistent, but as long as you've done your due diligence I don't reckon you're in the wrong.

Energy Ombudsman:

www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/energy

They take their time but they do resolve issues. I had an issue when I moved house - took ages but the Ombudsman did get it sorted out in the end.

I can't be arsed reading the full thread so hopefully someone has already told you - you can't be backbilled for more than a year.

We had this with a rental property at work. New tenants couldn't get an account set up as it didn't exist. The property was 200 years old and all the previous tenants had no issues.

Turns out when the last tenant moved out the electric supply managed to change everything to the forwarding address so if you looked up the address it didn't exist.

Took almost 18 months to get sorted and we had to apply to national grid to get the database amended.

@ArblemarzipanTFruitcake

Energy Ombudsman:

www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/energy

They take their time but they do resolve issues. I had an issue when I moved house - took ages but the Ombudsman did get it sorted out in the end.

Just to add @isitfree contacting the Ombudsman will also give you irrefutable evidence of having tried your utmost to sort this out, in the unlikely event you should need it.

Let us know which solicitor you used for conveyancing when you bought the house. I’ll make a note to never use them. Surely they should have picked these issues up.

Also happened to me. Got two years free on my new build. Builder used Scottish Power to connect houses to gas and electric during the build phase. Gas Nation Grid failed to register the gas meter on the database but did connect it. Someone (I suspect builder) managed to muddle the MPANS and MPRs I think when allocating house numbers as the estate was referred to on paperwork by plot numbers. My electric registered ok but I could not get ScottishPower to accept my gas as they couldn’t find the meter. In fact they were quite insistent that my house did not have gas. It took 3 YEARS to get them to do their actual job and register my gas meter and commence billing. They then “found” my gas meter a further year down the line and phoned the house (obviously they had my number with me being an account holder ya’ know) spoke to DH and opened a new account in his name, billing him for 4 years worth of gas - over £3K. There were other Scottish Power related problems - too many to list and you’d never believe it all anyway - and it took a further two years to straighten out my account enough to get it changed to another supplier. Utility supply in this country sucks.

Our second home electricity gave us a refund we were baffled so shone a torch on the meter the meter was going backwards, there was some weird gadget attached the previous owner had forgotten to take it was a repossession job.

The second time was a neighbor who as an employee of the electric board had spliced off a connection pre the meter and was running his home for free. I suspect this maybe is what's happening here

I moved on the 17th and we had a sodding bill from British gas on our door step saying we are your supplier. 🤣 I'm well jealous of you.

I used to work for a water company and I'm not overly shocked they paid water as the water company I work for bill you as soon as your connected.

It'll be the Distribution Network Operator of your area you probably would need to contact to see if it ever got listed off as completed. If they didn't with the council tax then I doubt they have with them

Don’t worry too much. Definitely won’t go to jail!

My parents got connected to gas c 1988. They have never been sent a bill. Like you they tried to get to the bottom of it and failed and they don’t worry any more!

I worry though because one day I will
Probably have to sell the house and the buyers will ask for account details !

@Justmebeingme245

I had the same problem with gas in a new build. I tried everything but no one would admit to supplying it. Eventually got a whacking huge bill from British Gas. I complained and they deducted 50% from the bill but I had to pay the rest and they had the cheek to put the missed payments on my credit record. Definitely put money aside just in case.

That happened to us too twice... one we finally sorted it out by saying 'well we're getting gas from somewhere so we must be hooked up illegally'. There was a van round within the hour and we were sorted! Well with the hoo ha of them charging it all in one go, then refusing to split into lower instalments and putting it on our credit record..

Other time they refused to accept that we weren't on a key meter - they'd read the meter but never billed us because the system had it as a key meter that isnt billed - we fixed that by changing supplier but were never charged for the few years we were trying to sort it out.

Pay money into a savings account and keep records of correspondence. Then if/when bill turns up you are fine

Op if you want to send me a pic of your meter or send me the serial number I can have a look in work on one of the systems to see if your meter is even listed as being in existence.

@gofg

Can not switch as they need to know who I am with at the moment and I have no idea

I'm not in the UK, but it seems you have an odd system! All electricity connections here have a unique number and from that number it would be easy to find who the supplier is. If there is no supplier (odd!!) then I can't see how you will ever get a bill, but surely this can't go on indefinitely, there must be some solution.

OP does not know her Meterpoint number.

Her Distribution Network Operator should have it, and, if not, will issue one.

OP does not know her Meterpoint number.

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

Is the electricity still being supplied under an old address, the address which existed before yours was built? We had that problem when changing house names, took about three years for us to get the change through with utilities companies (especially BG they were the worst). You’ll be able to look up the old address using the council’s planning portal.

Keep a record of every bit of communication you have with every company trying to resolve this. Ask for names, log the dates etc. Keep a big fat file marked TRYING TO PAY FOR ELECTRICITY!!!!

Work out what your electricity should cost roughly per month for a house of its size and put money by in a separate account each month for when it finally catches up with you.

After you are pretty sure you've exhausted all avenues and done everything you could possibly be expected to do, just sit back and forget about it.

I used to deal with these types of issues for British Gas as part of specialist complaints. It's really common. Especially for business properties.. You honestly won't be prosecuted - they can't prosecute anyone unless it's direct theft. By which I mean you've ran a pipe from the gas meter or something. Even then they don't bother most the time. It's not worth the cost and time.

Have you got your MPAN from the meter? It should be printed on there. Take a reading today and then you need to contact a supplier of your choice (go with a big one like British gas who will have done this before). Contact them in writing or via email to their specialist complaints department. State that you have no supplier and request that they become your deemed supplier from todays date with the current reading. They'll then register your mpan. Once that's done you're free to move supplier whenever you want.

The worst that'll happen is they'll discover the mpan is already registered but either the address is recorded wrongly and that's why they can't trace your property (happens all the time) and there might be a big bill waiting for you. However then you'll have leverage to negotiate and have the majority of it written off. It'll be a pain in the. Bum but it does need sorting.I'll be happy to help if you need more advice.

And new builds by individuals I should say. I've just reeead the thread and saw that it was a self build. What could have happened is that the previous property was registered as demolished and the mpan removed from the address. If that's the case It'll need the new one setting back up. If you go to a supplier they'll do that for you with the network.