Landlord charging for bills

[kirinm]

We’ve been living in a rental following the sale of our flat. We are finally about to complete on our purchase and have handed in our notice.

When we moved in, we tried to have all of the bills transferred into our names. We succeeded with the water bill and council tax but as the landlord has only ever let the house out as an air BnB, he was a bit funny about us transferring the electricity and gas accounts to us. We agreed that he’d keep the accounts in his name and he’d bill us. Despite us repeatedly asking for the bills he didn’t do it. Now we’ve handed in our notice, he’s apparently finally been able to work out what we owe and is going to dump a 10 month bill on us.

I’m quite pissed off about this. This wasn’t what was agreed and he basically didn’t know what he was doing as a non-professional landlord so didn’t get himself together. It is complicated by the fact he lives directly behind us in a house he built in the garden. Given the size of our water bill, I think it’s possible some of the accounts cover his house and ours.

Anyway, surely having not invoiced us for a period of (I think) 10 months now despite us asking repeatedly, its unreasonable for him to present us with a massive bill at the end? We will pay it (although we will be pushing for reductions because of how shit the house is) but it’s come at the worst time.

I’m very grateful that when we were renting (prior to buying our last home) we generally had decent ish landlords. I was really upset for quite a long time when we moved into this one. We pay nearly £3000 a month and he couldn’t even be bothered to make sure windows opened.

He also kept every single bit of furniture, plates, cups, cutlery in the house despite promising to remove it. We complained about that to as we needed to pay for more storage than anticipated.

He didn’t care about that either!

Well, I'm not and never have been doing similar things as your landlord, or having mouse droppings in the properties.
It doesn't change the fact that you ought to pay, however, these (more and more occuring) conflicts between both sides cause owners eventually selling up and renters having less choice and getting angry. It's in my own country, too.(Central Europe).

What do you mean by he wouldn’t transfer them to you? I’ve moved almost every year for years and I’ve stayed with the same supplier for gas and electric throughout. I just fill in online with my supplier that I’ve moved into the property with the meter readings on the day I moved in. They then check if they currently supply the new home I’ve moved into or not. If they don’t it takes about two weeks to switch and a final bill from the old supplier comes through the post that’s it.

How was your landlord stopping this?

He is selling up. It was never let as a proper rental - he previously let it as an air Bnb - which is why he doesn’t know how to be a landlord. That’s on him.

You don't need anything from a landlord except the tenancy agreement to be able to open your own energy account. You just choose a supplier and open it.

This is why I think the two houses are possibly connected. We spoke to octopus energy who added us but then he received notice of a cancellation of his account. He didn’t want that to happen and so it was agreed to transfer it back into his name and he then bill us.

We didn’t mind doing it that way as we weren’t planning on living there for long. We also had similar issues with WiFi. Either he has the same account for both houses or he didn’t really want things changing because it was a short term let. I’ve no idea.

You should have pushed back and sent a copy of your tenancy. I’m with octopus and our house was registered as a business as our landlord had a business here so they tried to charge us business rates.

They asked us for a copy of our tenancy and that was it. Your landlord had no right to stop this.

We didn’t need to push back because we / he agreed to share the bills with us.

You didn’t think to push back at all when a single bill didn’t arrive over the course of 10 months?

That is not how life work or the law.

Ffs. How many times. YES we asked. we are still asking as we move out in 2 weeks time.

I know how the law works. And I also know the original terms of the contract weren’t complied with. I also know he didn’t care that his house shouldn’t have been let out because the windows didn’t open but was in a contract when I found that and had shelled out £6k

So why didn’t you go to Octopus and send them your tenancy agreement then?

You’ve just said you didn’t need to as he agreed to send them over but you obviously did as he didn’t send you a bill for ten months.

So you think the landlord is entirely reasonable in all of this?

Surely the two addresses will have separate bills, the provider won’t lump them both together- even if it’s all on one bill, the usage at each address will be listed.

Be firm and say that you can’t reimburse him until you have copies of the bills. I’ve lived in a couple of flats where the energy bills were in the landlord’s name and always received copies of them before paying. Anything else is ridiculous.

Did he put your deposit in a safe deposit scheme? If not, you have grounds to sue him and he needs to tread carefully.

I never said that. But I do think you were responsible in the ten months building up. If my landlord did this and didn’t send me the bill after the first month I’d chase it with octopus myself.

What did you think was going to happen when he didn’t send you bills for ten months?

Take it to court then they will tell you.

You do have to pay, the window is nothing to do with it. You are trying to 'justify' yourself with non relevant stuff and the court will not entertain that at all. If you had issue with the landlord you needed to move out, you cannot live their then argue about later. You can report him as a landlord and the council might fine him and order him to upkeep regulations but that is absolutely NOTHING to do with reducing or eradicating your contracted payments requirement. Only a court can do that and its virtually unheard of to get a refund or debt wiped if you continued to live there.

It's the same as ordering a stake eating it and then saying you didn't like it so wont pay, you actually LEGALLY only have two options 'leave it' or 'pay', you do not have the option to use it and decide not to pay afterwards.

Good grief - that’s useful- didn’t know it existed

Tbh you don’t need to pay. The bills aren’t in your name so they can’t chase you.

in theory the landlord could sue you but doubtful, sounds like he’s got too much going on to try and explain to a judge

Ultimately it comes down to what your tenancy agreement says. Does it say yourself or the landlord are responsible for the bills? They can claim it back from your deposit if it says yourself.

They can if it’s in their tenancy agreement that they are responsibly for the bills and the TDS has a section where they can claim this from their deposit. If the bills are in the landlords name and there’s no mention in the tenancy of the tenant being responsible for the bills then there’s nothing he can do.

Keep a record of all communications and don't pay without proof.
The fact that he won't show you the proof suggests heavily that he is trying to screw you over.
I wouldn't be drawn into a discussion about it just keep repeating that you will pay the bill as soon as he shows you the proof.

We will pay because we agreed to pay. But I think his behaviour is unreasonable. He won’t be taking a penny of our deposit. We’ve got years to fight over that if he tries to.