Urgent Help Needed Please - Arghh!

[eddymced]

I have just received a notice through my door from Southern Electric saying "access notice - rights of entry" stating that someone called today to disconnect my gas supply because an amount of £936 is owing. While I do not dispute monies are owing (VERY long story but slight mitigating circumstances - does not help though!) I have not actually received any communication from Southern Electric about Court cases or a summons or that they would be calling - can they do this? I was under the impression that a court hearing would have to take place for them to obtain a warrant to enter my premises? Please, can someone help me on this and advise me what I can do to stop this matter going any further?

[mree]

By this stage, your only options really are to:

a) pay the debt in full
b) make an appointment for them to come and fit a key meter, with the debt loaded on at a weekly amount you can afford; or
c) do nothing, they'll enforce the warrant and fit a key meter anyway, but they'll decide how much they take back a week.

They do have to go to court for a warrant, but they usually won't notify you of the exact details of the hearing as they don't need you to be there.

[gondukin]

Did they actually disconnect you? To me it sounds like a pre-warrant visit, where a debt rep scopes out the siuation and tries to obtain payment and/or try to get you to have a prepayment meter fitted voluntarily before they actually go to court. You are running out of time, you need to follow mree's advice to stop further action. However when they go to court you should be notified of the details as you can turn up and object (although it is unlikely to do any good unless the utility co has completely stuffed something up).

[eddymced]

No, they did not disconnect me, just left a letter - I was actually in but did not hear them knock or anything but then, my children were home at the time and making enough noise to drown anything out! Thank you for your advice, I will make contact with them and see how it goes, although judging by past letters about all this, it will get me nowhere as they have not had the decency to respond to anything so far!:o

[PriorityOne]

You do need to contact them as soon as possible to make an arrangement to pay. It's highly unlikely that they will disconnect you when you have small children.... so you need to make them aware of this as well. They will still go after their money in one way or another though.

If a key meter is a more realistic option for you right now, then it's something worth considering. However, most key meters are a more expensive way of paying for utilities... so I am assuming that water would be no different. If you are able to pay it off yourself (including an amount towards the arrears), then they should find this acceptable. If you are on Benefits, this amount can be deducted straight from source.

Whatever you decide though, you must contact them as soon as possible to prevent any further action being taken.

[mree]

If they've gotten to the warrant stage, I very much doubt they're going to accept anything other than payment in full if you don't want a key meter putting in. They won't disconnect you unless the location of your meter is unsafe to install a key meter (e.g., over 6 foot up a wall), but they will install the key meter with debt on, then if you don't pay you're seen as disconnecting yourself. Having kids or not won't make the slightest bit of difference to them installing a key meter, the only thing that will stop them putting a key meter in (unless it's unsafe) is if there's someone in the house who's electricity-dependent, for example on a home dialysis machine.

They can deduct payment directly from your benefits, but again they're unlikely to agree to this at this stage. I really do think the only thing you can do to avoid the key meter is pay in full, otherwise you need to be booking that appointment before they get their warrant actioned!

[gg2327]

i've just had this happened to me this week and as you can imagine i went ballistic especially when i paid twice this month and have been quite regular with a couple of missed months . so i got hubby to call and he went all panicky and said we better fork out £300 or they will come this monday and cut us off and i got all ****ed as we were having problems with excessive billing from them and called energywatch myself and to make long story short. no they cannot come and just turn off your electricity supply without allowing you the opportunity to set up a payment plan no matter how small. they 'll try to demand you
pay in full or some other ridiculous amount but they cannot make you pay what you can't afford even if this means £5 a month. info is all on energywatch site. anyway since you posted on the 17th your problem is probably resolved by now but if not call enerygywatch. find out your rights swalec even tried to persuade me that £150 monthly bill is normal for two people using a regular amount of electricity television, fridge, computer, economy 7

[compman]

If it has gotten to the warrant stage, then bailiff fees will be added for the first visit.
If the bailiff has to go to court to obtain a warrant for disconnection,then more charges are added for The Bailiff, A locksmith and an engineer from the utility company.

BTW
You say that your supplier is Southern Electric.

Southern Electric do not have any gas engineers so they will sub contract it out to Transco to fit the meter. This will be a card meter. key meters are for electric meters.

[tiglet]

If it had gone to court and they had a warrant, you should have received a hand-delivered "human rights notification" prior to their visit. This would advise you of the court date so that you could attend.

[eddymced]

Thought I would give you all an update and to say thank you for your posts and help. I did not, as thought, get a response from their normal customer services so, in the end I contact their Director of Customer Services who handle complaints etc via email. I got an immediate response and, after some toing and froing they have agreed to an immediate payment of £100 plus a Direct Debit of £100 per month which includes ongoing gas supply and payment towards the debt. So, they are approachable and helpful if you get to the right people - I say, contact their Director of Customer Services immediately if you have a problem (their address, telephone number and email are on the back of your bill!) and they seem to have the power to be reasonable.