My flatmate and I are full-time students living in a new-build apartment. When we moved in, we were told the landlord/building management would notify the utility companies. That didn’t happen properly , our address wasn’t registered correctly and electricity bills were sent to the landlord’s address instead of ours, without us being told. DISCLAIMER We did save for the upcoming bills but it was difficult as we didn’t know what it would be since the letters were not being sent to us.
We contacted the energy supplier (E.ON Next) three times:
in our move-in month and were told it would be sorted,
later told our address wasn’t registered and to ask the landlord who our supplier was,
finally resolved once the address/account were set up correctly.
Because of this, several months of charges were added all at once instead of billed monthly. We’re now being asked to pay £700 backdated, plus a late payment fee, even though we never received the bills and actively tried to fix the issue early on.
We’re not refusing to pay for electricity , if the account had been set up correctly, we would’ve paid monthly. But as students, suddenly being asked to pay £700 on top of rent feels unfair. We’ve asked for the late fee to be removed and for a reduction/credit of the backdated charges due to the admin failures.
AITA for pushing back and saying this isn’t fair?
NTA
While you’re unlikely to get them to reduce the amount owed, it doesn’t hurt to ask and the late fees should definitely be removed.
Also, given the situation, be sure to ask about a payment plan.
No, you are being reasonable to ask for this to be worked out, especially if the mistake is their own. How successful you will be depends on who you talk to and if they keep a note of calls from a certain address/account. I don’t know why the landlord didn’t pass the bill on in the mean time though so it could be paid. But asking for a payment plan for the lump sum and a negation of the late fee for mitigating circumstances is fair and reasonable.
You should have been putting aside the money for the bill each month. You’ve used the service and need to pay it. I would ask for the late fee to be waived and see if they can break up the $700 to be added to the next 10 or 12 bills.
Thank you for the advice! Normally we would budget monthly, but the bills weren’t being sent to us and our address wasn’t registered correctly. We didn’t have visibility of the charges despite trying to fix the issue early on.
So you just didnt put any money aside for electricity??? You just….. assumed you weren’t going to have to pay the bill at any point?
Look the clerical error obviously isn’t your fault, but you’re not being charged a random amount. You are being charged for the service you very much DID use. You legitimately owe that money, regardless of what the comments here say, and no amount of N T As will actually stop them from just turning your power off if you don’t pay it. As an adult it was your responsibility to know that bill was coming and prepare for it. If you could’ve afforded the bill normally, then you should not have been spending that money. You should have saved it for the bill you knew was coming, because you were using electricity.
“We didn’t have visibility of the charges despite trying to fix the issue early on.”
Sure but you still knew you were using and had to pay for electricity. But just didn’t bother putting any money aside for it.
It is reasonable to refuse the late charges as that was not your fault, it is reasonable to ask for a payment plan.
But if say $600 of the $700 is actual usage, you owe and should pay that.
You can ask for a payment plan and spread it out over 2/3 months, but it is unreasonable to refuse to pay the actual usage charges just because they have accumulated.
NTA
I would make sure you safeguard ALL documentation you have of your efforts to contact the landlord and the electric company, the errors that repeatedly occurred between them… And their responses that the landlord will take care of things. (I hope your communications were not by phone (or if they were, that you documented the date & time of your calls and who you spoke with)!
Then send a formal letter to your landlord AND the electric company that your relied on THEIR communications that the landlord would handle the transfer and that the electric company would correct the errors in a timely manner. You expect either the electric company to drop the late fees OR the landlord to pay them. And – either way – they should in no way be reported on to the credit rating companies. (continued…)
Then add that you are willing to pay for the electricity but not all at once. Either (1) the electric company agrees to allow you to pay those fees in monthly increments of (70 or 100 – whatever you can reasonably handle, in addition to your current monthly electric bill) or (2) the landlord pays the bill in full and you will repay the landlord the old electric fees in monthly increments of (70 or 100).
Should the insist on you paying all those fees, you will take them to court and insist that you are responsible for absolutely NONE of the charges based on the complete mismanagement by both the landlord and the electric company. You will show the court your efforts to address the problem even before you had moved in and well after you had moved in. You will also show the court your efforts to find a reasonable solution and their refusal to take any responsibility for THEIR mistakes.
For transparency, I have no legal background; but I think your letter/those arguments in a court would be very effective in giving you some relief.
NTA. They should be able to accommodate payments, and should have notes on your calls to correct the billing. I’d pursue getting the charges removed, and a payment plan for the unpaid bills.
Call the customer service line and them if they will spread the payments of the next 6-9 months. However long you have left in the lease. If customer service won’t. Call the corporate HQ and ask the the Exexcutive in charge of Customer support. Usually can be found on the website. Tell them and they will likely accommodate this
NTA. I think this is a pretty normal thing to happen to young people when they first move out. Just be kind when speaking with the company and make reasonable requests. Dropping the late fee is reasonable. I don’t know that company specifically but it’s pretty standard to set up a payment plan. You may need to make an initial payment to get it started but it wouldn’t be the whole amount. Don’t fret, this isn’t a big deal
I’m a bit confused why you didn’t contact them to just pay the bills accumulating? Why did you only contact them 3 times over several months?
Sorry but YTA. Ask them to split up the bill and if they actually made an error see if they will waive the late fee.
We did contact them as soon as we realised there was an issue, and we followed up when it still wasn’t resolved. Each time we were either told it would be sorted or that our address wasn’t correctly registered, which is why we couldn’t just “pay as we went” there was no active account or bills being issued to us at the time.