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Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

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  • Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

    Hello, this is my first post so please be patient with me.

    A friend of mine was living in a rented house with his partner and her child, they were advised by the letting agent that he would attend to take a meter reading and that once he had done that they should establish gas service in their own name.

    The letting agent never turned up to read the meter, and (for one reason or another) the agent was sacked by the landlord and a new lettings agency were appointed.

    At this point my friend contacted British gas to establish his own gas supply but was informed that the company who currently supplied the gas were a commercial supplier and British gas were unable to gain their cooperation.

    My friend contacted the commercial supplier and asked that they cooperate with British gas as he was a residential customer and not a commercial one

    From here my friend continued to receive invoices, until they obtained a warrant and disconnected him (no prior visit to establish vulnerability and no disconnection notice)

    My friend was able after the disconnection to establish residential service and put the whole episode down to bad management on the part of the original supplier and forgot about the (we believe unlawful) invoices.

    These guys have instructed solicitors to collect the debt who have entered a claim with the Northampton CCBCS (I think those are the right letters it's late)

    We sent a CPR31.14 Request for particulars of claim as none were supplied with the claim form and there was no indication that they would follow.

    The documents mentioned in the POC were "invoices rendered between x date and x date"

    The CPR request was sent on the 14th and not signed for until the 21st, allowing 7 days for them to comply took us right up to the date by which he had to enter a defence. We called the court and they advised us to call the claimants' solicitor and ask for an extension, they asked me to put it in writing via email which we did, and we received no reply. The court advised that he should still enter a defence as judgement would be made by default if he didn't.

    Since the claimants solicitor did not reply to the CPR request within the given time and only on the 6th of February they sent a letter back stating that their clients think my friend has "Somewhat of a cheek" for making the request as he is "well aware of the history of the case".

    They have attached some customer service logs (which weren't mentioned in the particulars of claim) So I believe they have not complied with our CPR request.

    We wanted to file an N244 asking that the case be struck out. We're stuck now. What are our options, can we still ask that the case be struck out for non compliance? Do they even have a case demanding commercial gas charges be paid by a residential customer? Does my mate have a leg to stand on?

    Please help
    Tags: None

  • #2
    Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

    Was the gas billed for in the invoices actually used by your friend?
    "Although scalar fields are Lorentz scalars, they may transform nontrivially under other symmetries, such as flavour or isospin. For example, the pion is invariant under the restricted Lorentz group, but is an isospin triplet (meaning it transforms like a three component vector under the SU(2) isospin symmetry). Furthermore, it picks up a negative phase under parity inversion, so it transforms nontrivially under the full Lorentz group; such particles are called pseudoscalar rather than scalar. Most mesons are pseudoscalar particles." (finally explained to a captivated Celestine by Professor Brian Cox on Wednesday 27th June 2012 )

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    • #3
      Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

      Yes it was, but it's not like he had a choice, they wouldn't cooperate with British gas and allow him to switch

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

        What sort of difference, financially speaking, are we talking about here between the gas used being supplied commercially as opposed to it having been supplied on a domestic tariff?

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

          For a start there is a daily 'standing charge' of £2 for commercial, and I'm not sure how much more they charge by Kw/h It is something I need to work up, I will post tomorrow the average price per KW/h using the major residential suppliers. I am on pre payment which is obviously well known for being the most expensive way to pay for gas, and with 3 children And considering the recent weather the most I put in my meter per month is £80 - compared with the commercial tariff my friend was on I would only just be covering the standing charge.
          Last edited by Mentally incapacitated; 19th February 2013, 00:10:AM. Reason: Too hasty with the post quick reply button

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          • #6
            Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

            Anyone have any thoughts on this? QA is due on 26th, N244 and try non compliance, or where do we go with this? Anyone?

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

              BUMP

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                Okay,

                Taken an average of the 4 major domestic suppliers,

                Scottish Power, EDF, E.On, British Gas
                Source uswitch.com

                Average cost in pence per kWh: 4.2
                Average daily Standing Charge: 19p

                The claimant has billed at 5.5p Per kWh
                with a daily standing charge of £2.00

                just to compare, the annual cost of gas to a domestic customer (inclusive of the standing charge) based on Annual usage of 12,307 kWh for a 2 bed home heated with gas comes to an average of £654 - rounding up to the nearest pound

                The Claimant would have charged £1406 for the same usage

                Quite a substantial difference.

                M I

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                  Uh.... Sorry AQ is due on the 26th not QA Doh!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                    OK - agreed, roughly double the price (slightly more). I assume we're not talking an annual charge here though, how long were they on the commercial tariff for?

                    Why was the domestic property on a commercial tariff in the first place?

                    Sorry for all the questions.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                      Thanks for the reply Labman I really appreciate your help,

                      The property was, (prior to my mate moving in) a shared house occupied by students. The commercial supply was established by a property management company (maybe they included utilities in the rent I'm not sure) My mate moved in in September 2011.

                      The meter was disconnected in may 2012.

                      In reply to our CPR 31.14 request for particulars of claim, the Solicitor acting for the claimant sent a log from the customer relationship system in which the first entry is one from 09/09/2011 reporting New Customer details, and at the bottom it says in all caps like so: DO NOT CREDIT CHECK DOMESTIC SITE THANKS.

                      The next entry - 7 minutes later is a letter (I assume they are claiming they sent) stating that they are writing to inform him that as an industrial and commercial supplier they are not permitted to supply him as his usage is for residential purposes only.

                      (sorry to go on but this Log isn't mentioned in their particulars of claim - they haven't complied with the CPR 31.14, they have just sent a letter politely telling us to shove our request - and sent these system logs)

                      The whole thing just smacks of incompetence and dishonesty.
                      They had a child under six there, and refusing to cooperate with their application to switch supplier resulted in their gas being disconnected for Three months before their new supplier were able to install a new meter and commence supply.

                      Thanks again for reading this

                      M I

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                        Do you have a Law Centre near you? It may be worth a visit!

                        http://www.lawcentres.org.uk/

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                          I've just re-read your first post again. If I'm reading it correctly, the letting agent who was supposed to take the reading (but never did) was reading the meter for the first time since your friend had moved in?

                          If this is the case, does the landlord not have a responsibility here? I know there are people here who specialise in housing issues - if I forget tomorrow (very likely knowing me), please pm me with a link to this thread and I'll ask them to have a look at it for you.

                          If in the meantime you could clarify whether or not this was the initial reading, that would be great.

                          Thanks.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                            The lettings agent never turned up to read the meter, the notes are from the gas supplier I am assuming from the notes that they had turned up to read the meter when they were informed there was a new occupant. It isn't clear who told them there was a new occupant.

                            so yes this was an initial reading taken by the actual supplier who noted at the time that it was a domestic site.
                            Last edited by Mentally incapacitated; 20th February 2013, 09:20:AM. Reason: To actually answer the question

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Residential consumer Taken to court by commercial gas supplier

                              RE law centres, no I've just looked into that unfortunately there isn't one in our area nearest is over 50 miles away and probably wouldn't want to help as we don't fall into their catchment area.

                              Comment

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