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Living at this address from around early 2016 - there was never any written agreement with the landlord in regards to anything, only verbally that we all pay the weekly rent, in cash, no sort of paperwork regarding all of this at all, he takes care of the bills.
Few days ago - early AUG 2019 - another guy from the house tells me he saw some Thames water envelope with my name. Shocked by this I confronted the landlord, and indeed, he shows me two letters with my name on them.
''FINAL DEMAND'' titled letters, again addressed to me, that about £1000 are due to be paid for the water usage. Both threatening legal action or debt collection agencies.
At this point the landlord acts a little bit surprised, asking me why are they coming in my name, and indeed just verbally confirming that the payment is his responsibility and that I shouldn't worry too much about it.
My first thought was that obviously someone gave my name away without ever asking me or informing me about it, so to just go at the local police station and tell them all of this.
On the following day I called the Thames Water office, the clerk is telling me that I am indeed the account holder - or the one responsible to pay that - since January 2018 - when a 3rd party company had to come to do a ''physical check'' at the property, and somehow got my name - ''since no one else was taking responsibility for the bill''- so for more than 18 months.
I tried explaining to her that I never knew about that, I never agreed to that and that I never received any letters from them since Jan 18 with my name, as I reckon the landlord was taking them as soon as they were delivered at the address, while I was away at work and that I'm not supposed to pay any bills for that address and that I would like the bills to be addressed to the landlord.
The only way to do that is for the landlord to send a letter to the company and tell them that indeed the bill shouldn't be addressed to me, and that it's only his responsibility to have that paid. - Which he avoids doing -
Asked the clerk from Thames water how did they get my name, and was told that only the landlord can appoint another person to be responsible for the bills, and basically they wouldn't need any sort of consent from the given person, they would just start to send the bill under that name.
While as they DO need this letter of consent, of confirmation from him when I asked them to put back his name on the bill - or whatever name was there before-. They also wouldn't tell me what name they've had on the bill previous to mine.
Landlord won't make this call or send this letter to their office, never told me about the letters, which apparently have been coming in from Jan 2018, and apparently he would've been the only one able to provide them with a new name as the one responsible for paying this and wouldn't show me any other older bills, or bills from the Gas, Electricity or Council for me to see that it's not my name on them as well, which makes me believe that he's done all of this on purpose just so that I would be at fault for him not paying the house's bill, but again, he did act surprised when I asked him about all of this, saying he had no idea about all of this, and asking me why my name is on there as if I had something to do with it.
Someone told me that ultimately the debt collection agency would be able to just take any stuff from my room, from my belongings, as payment for the bill, based on the fact that my name is on it and that I'm also using the water utility in the house.
What do I do now, I think that even if I change the property but the bill still stays on my name it'll still be an issue, I think that my credit score has been affected in some way by this over this long period of more than 1.5 yrs as well.
Is this a police matter ? is it fraud ? is there any way in which he's telling me the truth and he's really had nothing to do with this ? Where do I go from here ?
Few days ago - early AUG 2019 - another guy from the house tells me he saw some Thames water envelope with my name. Shocked by this I confronted the landlord, and indeed, he shows me two letters with my name on them.
''FINAL DEMAND'' titled letters, again addressed to me, that about £1000 are due to be paid for the water usage. Both threatening legal action or debt collection agencies.
At this point the landlord acts a little bit surprised, asking me why are they coming in my name, and indeed just verbally confirming that the payment is his responsibility and that I shouldn't worry too much about it.
My first thought was that obviously someone gave my name away without ever asking me or informing me about it, so to just go at the local police station and tell them all of this.
On the following day I called the Thames Water office, the clerk is telling me that I am indeed the account holder - or the one responsible to pay that - since January 2018 - when a 3rd party company had to come to do a ''physical check'' at the property, and somehow got my name - ''since no one else was taking responsibility for the bill''- so for more than 18 months.
I tried explaining to her that I never knew about that, I never agreed to that and that I never received any letters from them since Jan 18 with my name, as I reckon the landlord was taking them as soon as they were delivered at the address, while I was away at work and that I'm not supposed to pay any bills for that address and that I would like the bills to be addressed to the landlord.
The only way to do that is for the landlord to send a letter to the company and tell them that indeed the bill shouldn't be addressed to me, and that it's only his responsibility to have that paid. - Which he avoids doing -
Asked the clerk from Thames water how did they get my name, and was told that only the landlord can appoint another person to be responsible for the bills, and basically they wouldn't need any sort of consent from the given person, they would just start to send the bill under that name.
While as they DO need this letter of consent, of confirmation from him when I asked them to put back his name on the bill - or whatever name was there before-. They also wouldn't tell me what name they've had on the bill previous to mine.
Landlord won't make this call or send this letter to their office, never told me about the letters, which apparently have been coming in from Jan 2018, and apparently he would've been the only one able to provide them with a new name as the one responsible for paying this and wouldn't show me any other older bills, or bills from the Gas, Electricity or Council for me to see that it's not my name on them as well, which makes me believe that he's done all of this on purpose just so that I would be at fault for him not paying the house's bill, but again, he did act surprised when I asked him about all of this, saying he had no idea about all of this, and asking me why my name is on there as if I had something to do with it.
Someone told me that ultimately the debt collection agency would be able to just take any stuff from my room, from my belongings, as payment for the bill, based on the fact that my name is on it and that I'm also using the water utility in the house.
What do I do now, I think that even if I change the property but the bill still stays on my name it'll still be an issue, I think that my credit score has been affected in some way by this over this long period of more than 1.5 yrs as well.
Is this a police matter ? is it fraud ? is there any way in which he's telling me the truth and he's really had nothing to do with this ? Where do I go from here ?
