Hi

Any help on this matter would be much appreciated

I took out a commercial lease on a property and for 3 years was invoiced by the landlord for the electricity usage, which was paid every quarter. Now, after having moved out, suddenly the electricity company are chasing me for a huge amount of money. On looking at the lease it says the tenant is responsible for paying the electricity. I have the invoices from the landlord clearly stating the charge each quarter for our share of electricty in the building. Will I be forced to pay twice due to this deceitful invoicing of my ex-landlord?

Are you saying that, completely out of the blue, the electricity company has landed you with a bill for 3 years electricity - which you are claiming the landlord aparently never paid? And yet you received this electricity service for 3 years uninterupted and with no contact from the supplier? I find this strange.

Have you asked the electricity company in whose name the electricity bill is? Does your lease say that you are required to pay the landlord or the electricity supply company directly? Does your old landlord still own the building? I would hold off paying any money to anyone until you can get proper legal advice, because you may not be able to claim your money back via the Court if the Landlord has absconded/gone out of business.

That's right, no contact from the supplier. When bills came for "the occupier" they were left in the common parts and I assumed they were picked up and paid by the landlord.

EDF has passed the case to a debt collection firm called BCW Group who are not interested in the invoices my ex-landlord produced. The landlord is one of the biggest in London, definitely not going out of business. The lease, unfortunately for me, says the tenant is responsible for electricity supply. Thanks for your advice so far, its good to hear an opinion in this matter. Half the money is £4,000 which I can't afford anyway.. can't even afford legal advice to be honest

You say that your lease agreement states that you are required to pay the electricity direct to the supplier, which rather begs the question why did the landlord do it (or not) and supply invoices? I strongly suggest that you take all your paperwork and go to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, they will provide free advice to assist you with this. I just wonder why EDF provided electricity with no bills being paid, for 3 years!

Have you written to your ex-landlord to seek an explanation from that office?

Yeah I wonder that, too, why did they supply electricity, let the bill reach £8,000, and then ask for payment? Surely that's very abnormal.

I'm going to take your advice and go to the Citizens Advice Bureau and write again to the ex-landlord.

Thanks for your help

You have answered a lot of your questions yourself...

While you may have an agreement with your landlod for the utility bills, there is no guarentee he has conveyed this to the supplier, and infact he hasn't evidence being the delivery of bills addressed to "The Occupier". Your landlord has pocketed the money, failed to notify the supplier that he is responsible for the bills.

They have undoubtedly sent other requests for infomation to the property which, given the infoamtion you have provided has gone astray. your account has since been passed to a debt Collection Agency who will have access to a wider range of tools, utilities and services to track down the occupant of the property, namely you.

As no prior agreement exsists your supplier and debt collection agency are well within their rights to hold you responsible for the payments for the energy that has been used at the property. The fact yo may have ana greement with another party, as stated previously now makes this a 3rd party dispute which the supplier will more than likely not enter into.

The onus is now on you i'm afraid to say to get contact your landlord and get them to approach the supplier in question, and make the arrangements for the bill to be settled. If this fails taking them to a small claims court as previously suggested might be the best avenue as they have the scope to look at the paperwork you hold and rule in your favour.

If you take the latter option it may be worth contacting the DCA or supplier and see if they will accept token paments until the court date, on the basis that if the ruling is in your favour then these payments are returned and full payment sought form the landlord. The basis being that is harder to take someone to court for non-payment if they are makng payments, albeit token payments.

Contacting your local CAB is also something you should put very high on your to do list, the infomation, advice and support they can offer will be invaluable during the resolution of this problem.

As a side note: £8000.00 debt on a commercial property is small fry for your supplier (obviously not for yourself), you'd be quite low down the list of repayments they would be looking to reclaim. It is not uncommon to see 6 figure balances on accounts, which quite obviously are of a higher importance for a supplier.