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Electricity Supply and error in Economy 7 Metering ....
I wonder if anyone could please give opinion on this and whether any case law or regulations exist that would apply to this situation.
I have been asked about a block of residential apartments where all of the electricity meters ( there are in excess of 60 flats ) read day and night readings as usual to reflect Economy 7 usage, i.e. day and night rates, the day rates being labelled reading 1 and the night rates being labelled 2 as you would expect. ON checking all of the meters, they all reflect reading 1's that are some three times ( on average ) the night rate 2 and again this is in line with what you would expect.
It seems that some residents are being charged the reading 1 as the night rate and reading 2 as the day rate ( all with the same company ) and even though this has been reported to the company concerned, the reply ( that has come back to more than one person ) is that is to be expected i.e. higher night rate, where storage heating is present. There is no storage heating in the block concerned, nor is there any gas. However, many residents cannot agree if indeed their is a problem.
My question is if this is found to be in error, which incidentally would be 100% on behalf of the electricity charging company, do they have a right to recharge starting from the inception of all the accounts or is there a 'one year rule' that I have read about whereby recharging can only go back on year from the date the potential error was detected?
I remember when I worked in council tax enforcement, if I made a call and discovered new residents in occupation, often after several years without a council tax charge being raised, I would advise them that they had a statutory liability to inform the local authority of their presence and hence we would raise a bill from the date they moved in. However, I am sure that in latter years that changed, possibly due to case law, whereby the council was criticised that they themselves had an obligation to ensure all taxation records were up to date ( difficult to do when the public simply fail to advise of movements in and out ) and hence the local authority could only commence the account on the 1st April of the current tax year or the date of actual occupation if that fell later.
All advice and referral links welcome. Cheers guys ...
I have been asked about a block of residential apartments where all of the electricity meters ( there are in excess of 60 flats ) read day and night readings as usual to reflect Economy 7 usage, i.e. day and night rates, the day rates being labelled reading 1 and the night rates being labelled 2 as you would expect. ON checking all of the meters, they all reflect reading 1's that are some three times ( on average ) the night rate 2 and again this is in line with what you would expect.
It seems that some residents are being charged the reading 1 as the night rate and reading 2 as the day rate ( all with the same company ) and even though this has been reported to the company concerned, the reply ( that has come back to more than one person ) is that is to be expected i.e. higher night rate, where storage heating is present. There is no storage heating in the block concerned, nor is there any gas. However, many residents cannot agree if indeed their is a problem.
My question is if this is found to be in error, which incidentally would be 100% on behalf of the electricity charging company, do they have a right to recharge starting from the inception of all the accounts or is there a 'one year rule' that I have read about whereby recharging can only go back on year from the date the potential error was detected?
I remember when I worked in council tax enforcement, if I made a call and discovered new residents in occupation, often after several years without a council tax charge being raised, I would advise them that they had a statutory liability to inform the local authority of their presence and hence we would raise a bill from the date they moved in. However, I am sure that in latter years that changed, possibly due to case law, whereby the council was criticised that they themselves had an obligation to ensure all taxation records were up to date ( difficult to do when the public simply fail to advise of movements in and out ) and hence the local authority could only commence the account on the 1st April of the current tax year or the date of actual occupation if that fell later.
All advice and referral links welcome. Cheers guys ...
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