Tweet
Hello,
I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, I'm new here and I wasn't quite sure if this was the right place to post.
We're in a very difficult situation and don't know where to turn for advice, especially now we've got only a few days to deal with things. This is a long and complicated situation so I'll try to keep it as brief and to the point as possible.
My parents marriage broke down in 2012, a divorce was started, stopped then restarted. My parents are now legally divorced with the financial situation going to the final hearing next January.
I live in with my diabled Mum in what was my parent's marital home (up for sale now). My Dad has a court order keeping him out of the house itself but he is allowed on the grounds to use the workshop for his work and stay in his camper van. Up until a few months ago this also included use of the electricity to run tools and machinery outside.
Some time back my Mum received a letter from SSE Southern Electric to say that she had an unpaid bill of £421.78. She has never opened an account with them. My Dad does have an account with them that was in his sole name - as it had been since 1980. He added my Mum's name to the bill without her knowledge (sometime last year we think). My Mum sent several e-mails back and forth with SSE aruging the case as she has never entered into a contract with them, she has never opened an account and to date has still not been provided with any details of an account. When my Mum became responsible for the electricity she opened an account with a different provider, who we are still with now.
Finally SSE responded to my Mum on 30th March this year to say they had removed my Mum's name from the account as requested and from the bills.
They then added that if my Dad contacted them again to dispute it then it would be classed as a third party dispute between my Mum and my Dad.
The e-mail ends saying if you (my Mum) are happy with this action as a resolution to let them know (which my Mum did) and they will close the matter. So as far as my Mum was concerned the situation was resolved.
I assume they then decided to persue my Dad for the money and he refused so they've turned their attention back to my Mum. In April this year they said it would be passed to their senior management team.
In September she received an e-mail from them saying this:
"29/9/16 from SSE - Apologies for any inconvenience caused as I am aware you were previously advised the matter was resolved and your details were removed as we believed you were not liable for the outstanding balance due. Following further investigation we have received confirmation that you are solely liable for the balance due, following this the account has been amended and once again placed in your name.
Due to the time it has taken to resolve the matter and due to any inconvenience I would like to offer to apply £100 of goodwill credit to the account, reducing your balance due to £321.78, to resolve the matter to your satisfaction."
Idon't know where this 'confirmation' has come from. Again, my Mum has never had an account with them. When she bacame responsible for the bills she opened an account with a different, much cheaper company. She has never had an account with SSE. She has not given them permission place the account in her name.
At the end of October my Mum received a letter from the Head of Customer Service at SSE saying saying that they have reviewed the compaint regarding liability for the outstanding balance and they've concluded it is a third party dispute. They said it's now a deadlock situation and they may no longer respond to any correspondance about the complaint. They've advised that she has the right to contact the Ombudsman within 12 months though they said they will not put the account on hold.
I've only just found out about this letter, and the one in September. My Mum contacted the Ombudsman back in March and they told her that they couldn't get involved until the dispute was 8 weeks old. I didn't know about the letter so I didn't know to advise her to contact the Ombudsman again in October.
The day before yesterday my Mum received another letter from SSE. They've given my Mum 7 working days to pay the bill or they will instruct a National Debt Collection Agency to commence recovery action, including a 15% recovery fee, leading to a possible Court for Summons to recover money owed as well as court fees.
I've only just read these letters for the first time today or I would have pushed my Mum to persue it earlier. We've had so much happen this year, the divorce, deaths in the family, trying to earn enough money just to survive. My Mum and brother are both disabled and I am their sole carer. My brother, who was on DLA was transfered to PIP last month and they've decided he's no longer entitled to payments (despite being disabled, in constant pain and very often unable to leave the house for weeks at a time!) so we've been dealing with the appeal for that, the judge for the divorce has given my Mum an enormous amount of work to do, my brother was in hospital for a while, my Mum had an operation and we had a death in the family last month so there have been so many things to deal with I wasn't aware it had got to this stage with SSE. My Mum is completely overloaded, she has too much to deal with. Her disiblity is physical but she also has cognitive problems. She has trouble dealing with problems and it takes her a long time to deal with anything. I do the best I can to help but I have little experience with these things and little time myself as I'm caring for two disabled people full time as well as trying to start a business, care for the home etc. We're all stressed and to be honest don't know where to turn. We've been to the CAB and they haven't been able to help on a lot. I don't have the experience to know how to handle this so I'm hoping someone can help direct us on where to turn? We don't have the money to get a solicitor on this - or the time anymore. Surely you can't just put a bill into someone elses name without their knowledge and they end up having to pay it?
I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, I'm new here and I wasn't quite sure if this was the right place to post.
We're in a very difficult situation and don't know where to turn for advice, especially now we've got only a few days to deal with things. This is a long and complicated situation so I'll try to keep it as brief and to the point as possible.
My parents marriage broke down in 2012, a divorce was started, stopped then restarted. My parents are now legally divorced with the financial situation going to the final hearing next January.
I live in with my diabled Mum in what was my parent's marital home (up for sale now). My Dad has a court order keeping him out of the house itself but he is allowed on the grounds to use the workshop for his work and stay in his camper van. Up until a few months ago this also included use of the electricity to run tools and machinery outside.
Some time back my Mum received a letter from SSE Southern Electric to say that she had an unpaid bill of £421.78. She has never opened an account with them. My Dad does have an account with them that was in his sole name - as it had been since 1980. He added my Mum's name to the bill without her knowledge (sometime last year we think). My Mum sent several e-mails back and forth with SSE aruging the case as she has never entered into a contract with them, she has never opened an account and to date has still not been provided with any details of an account. When my Mum became responsible for the electricity she opened an account with a different provider, who we are still with now.
Finally SSE responded to my Mum on 30th March this year to say they had removed my Mum's name from the account as requested and from the bills.
They then added that if my Dad contacted them again to dispute it then it would be classed as a third party dispute between my Mum and my Dad.
The e-mail ends saying if you (my Mum) are happy with this action as a resolution to let them know (which my Mum did) and they will close the matter. So as far as my Mum was concerned the situation was resolved.
I assume they then decided to persue my Dad for the money and he refused so they've turned their attention back to my Mum. In April this year they said it would be passed to their senior management team.
In September she received an e-mail from them saying this:
"29/9/16 from SSE - Apologies for any inconvenience caused as I am aware you were previously advised the matter was resolved and your details were removed as we believed you were not liable for the outstanding balance due. Following further investigation we have received confirmation that you are solely liable for the balance due, following this the account has been amended and once again placed in your name.
Due to the time it has taken to resolve the matter and due to any inconvenience I would like to offer to apply £100 of goodwill credit to the account, reducing your balance due to £321.78, to resolve the matter to your satisfaction."
Idon't know where this 'confirmation' has come from. Again, my Mum has never had an account with them. When she bacame responsible for the bills she opened an account with a different, much cheaper company. She has never had an account with SSE. She has not given them permission place the account in her name.
At the end of October my Mum received a letter from the Head of Customer Service at SSE saying saying that they have reviewed the compaint regarding liability for the outstanding balance and they've concluded it is a third party dispute. They said it's now a deadlock situation and they may no longer respond to any correspondance about the complaint. They've advised that she has the right to contact the Ombudsman within 12 months though they said they will not put the account on hold.
I've only just found out about this letter, and the one in September. My Mum contacted the Ombudsman back in March and they told her that they couldn't get involved until the dispute was 8 weeks old. I didn't know about the letter so I didn't know to advise her to contact the Ombudsman again in October.
The day before yesterday my Mum received another letter from SSE. They've given my Mum 7 working days to pay the bill or they will instruct a National Debt Collection Agency to commence recovery action, including a 15% recovery fee, leading to a possible Court for Summons to recover money owed as well as court fees.
I've only just read these letters for the first time today or I would have pushed my Mum to persue it earlier. We've had so much happen this year, the divorce, deaths in the family, trying to earn enough money just to survive. My Mum and brother are both disabled and I am their sole carer. My brother, who was on DLA was transfered to PIP last month and they've decided he's no longer entitled to payments (despite being disabled, in constant pain and very often unable to leave the house for weeks at a time!) so we've been dealing with the appeal for that, the judge for the divorce has given my Mum an enormous amount of work to do, my brother was in hospital for a while, my Mum had an operation and we had a death in the family last month so there have been so many things to deal with I wasn't aware it had got to this stage with SSE. My Mum is completely overloaded, she has too much to deal with. Her disiblity is physical but she also has cognitive problems. She has trouble dealing with problems and it takes her a long time to deal with anything. I do the best I can to help but I have little experience with these things and little time myself as I'm caring for two disabled people full time as well as trying to start a business, care for the home etc. We're all stressed and to be honest don't know where to turn. We've been to the CAB and they haven't been able to help on a lot. I don't have the experience to know how to handle this so I'm hoping someone can help direct us on where to turn? We don't have the money to get a solicitor on this - or the time anymore. Surely you can't just put a bill into someone elses name without their knowledge and they end up having to pay it?
..... there's an example and template starting point here -> 
Comment