Help.. re warrant to disconnect gas and elec

[Poormum]

Hi

Does anybody know the legalities on what I can do to stop a warrant being issued to our gas and leccy supplier as they want to disconnect our gas and leccy supply? The court hearing is Thursday. What happens at these hearings, does anyone know? Am I able to explain my circumstances and put forward a payment plan that the judge can ok or is that up to the supplier? They're not interested and just want to put in PPMs unless I pay the whole amount off, of which I am a couple of hundred quid short on being able to do.

I've been to Citizens Advice. No joy there.

We have a huge bill and I've raised nearly enough money to pay that off, then they sent another bill which added another £400! I rang them up and queried this as there is £200 on there which is listed as 'other charges' and the person I spoke to didn't know/want to expand on it. They want to stick pre payment meters in. Can I stop them? Does the whole bill have to be paid off to prevent this? The SP person told me not to pay a lump sum off as I would be paying the bill off weekly... and the amount is more than a third of my weekly income!! We would be left with £20 a week for food and everything else.

Any ideas what I can do? Many thanks.

[johnaydan]

i am also pondering about the question, lets see what types of help comes up....

[ATD]

You have the right to attend the magistrates hearing and put forward your proposals for payment - you can also present a financial statement for the magistrates to consider. The CAB should have been able to help you with this!

In most cases, if a customer attends the hearing the rep from the energy company is more than likely to withdraw the warrant from those being applied for. These are done in bulk, the rep will just have a large pile of warrant applications and if no one objects the magistrate will just stamp them.

If you have almost the amount required for the 1st bill, then you would probably be best offering a higher monthly payment (using that money), which will give you longer to get the rest together.

[noggsy]

Sorry ATD, but normally Magistrates arent really interested in seeing financial statements. However, they are more than likely to ask why no agreement can be reached. I agree, the rep is likely to withdraw the application before the hearing if they attend, especially if "Poormum" can settle most of the bill. This is not the reps decision though, it has to be put to the supplier before the hearing by the rep. So "Mum" I would go to the court, about 15 minutes before the court time given on the notification, report to the Court Ushers Office, telling them what you are there for, they will advise you of what court to attend. Also request that they notify the rep and the court that you are present. By rights the supplier should be talking to you about the "Social Tarriff" as it sounds from your post that you qualify. This is a reduced rate, which you need to explore with them. Whatever happens the supplier WLL NOT Cut You Off. Most importantly Dont worry. Hope it goes well

[ATD]

Originally Posted by noggsy

This is not the reps decision though, it has to be put to the supplier before the hearing by the rep.

That may well be the case with some suppliers, certainly not all.

[the main man]

I was in a similar position and pushed the charges that appeared on the bill to be withdrawn, as I had received no details or notification whatsoever of them being applied, they backed down relatively easily.

I also agreed to go on to direct debit and chose the payment date as late as possible the following month which bought me another 5 weeks to gather up the arrears.

I have now canceled the DD and am changing suppliers to one that offers a social tariff.

All the best

[Poormum]

Thanks for the info:o) I shall be there at court with all my gumphh

Some people I've spoken to say that I should go for the ppm as at least I'll have no bill to worry about once this is paid up! I'm just worried that I'll end up on an extortionate rate, never able to get off it and that we'll be sat in the dark for half the week. Young daughter is scared of the dark, especially winter time. It's just the amount they want me to pay weekly...it's just too much.

What happens once the debt has been repaid..do they come and reset the meter? Do you get charged for having a meter installed? Will I be viewed as the lowest of the low for having one? I am looking at worse case scenario, as this seems to be the story of my life lately!

Wonder if the neighbours would mind if I stuck some home made solar panels up on the roof! lol

[rippedoffagain]

I was on prepayment meter for several years, and yes it is embarrassing buying the electric prepayment tokens (do they still do it this way?), but when I discovered that a large proportion of my village, it seemed, were also on PPM, the embarrassment became less.

Would you pay for your petrol on a quarterly basis?

There were times when there might only be 40p to 50p left on the meter, and either no shop open to top up, or worse no money, it did get hairy from time to time.

On the upside it was nice not to get the hefty bills.

[ATD]

Originally Posted by Poormum

Thanks for the info:o) I shall be there at court with all my gumphh

Some people I've spoken to say that I should go for the ppm as at least I'll have no bill to worry about once this is paid up! I'm just worried that I'll end up on an extortionate rate, never able to get off it and that we'll be sat in the dark for half the week. Young daughter is scared of the dark, especially winter time. It's just the amount they want me to pay weekly...it's just too much.

What happens once the debt has been repaid..do they come and reset the meter? Do you get charged for having a meter installed? Will I be viewed as the lowest of the low for having one? I am looking at worse case scenario, as this seems to be the story of my life lately!

Wonder if the neighbours would mind if I stuck some home made solar panels up on the roof! lol

There is absolutely no reason to think of having an ETM as being the "lowest of the low", it is just another way to pay for your energy - much like a pay as you go mobile.

With regard to charging for having a meter installed, depends exactly what you are asking. If you mean having the ETM installed then depending on your suppliers policy there will probably be a charge for fitting it on a warrant visit. This was somewhere in the region of £235 about 2 years ago by BG.

If you mean having a credit meter refitted once the debt is cleared, again dependent on your suppliers policy, but not normally a charge for the fitting of the meter although they may request a security deposit which they would hold for around 12 months. If all bills were settled on time then the deposit would be refunded with interest.

[Poormum]

Well, I went to the court and I'm pooped!! It was a very early start for us with long journey.

There was no-one really around at court to ask/query anything..no duty solicitor, only a bunch of reps with wads of entry warrants that they wanted rubber stamping by the judge, sitting outside the court room and comparing notes!

The rep who was working on behalf of our provider asked if we could sort something out and once I'd explained how the debt had accummulated and I had tried to sort it, he tried his best to help out. Upshot is that I cleared the gas account, so that's on quarterly still...the bill is half what the leccy is. The leccy I'll have a meter and will pay a small amount off each week. Told him that the leccy company wouldn't agree to this when I asked about this, but he said he would sort it. There is no charge for installing the meter and all price changes are sorted out electronically, so I won't end up with another huge bill. I didn't have to go into court. The meter goes in next week and I'll let you know if he has kept to his word.

[noggsy]

Hi Mum, pleased it got sorted

[Poormum]

Thanks Noggsy:o)))

Ever the eternal pessimist.....I'll let you know what happens on Thursday. I hope the bloke from Chase kept his word!

I got the up to date bill yesterday. Gas bill was half of what they said. Even the electric was £100 lower than stated. So much for meter readers!! In the end, I had enough to pay it off and could have avoided all the hassle of ppm's. I'm well fed up.

[megan34]

Originally Posted by rippedoffagain

I was on prepayment meter for several years, and yes it is embarrassing buying the electric prepayment tokens (do they still do it this way?), but when I discovered that a large proportion of my village, it seemed, were also on PPM, the embarrassment became less.

Would you pay for your petrol on a quarterly basis?

There were times when there might only be 40p to 50p left on the meter, and either no shop open to top up, or worse no money, it did get hairy from time to time.

On the upside it was nice not to get the hefty bills.

Excuse me??? embarrassing??? you find paying in advance instead of getting on credit embarrassing?/ ive had pre payment meters in my house for both gas and electric for about 15 years since the old days of the 50p pieces and let me tell you I dont feel embarrassed at all - what I do feel is absolutely fantastic when I hear people moaning about their HIGH direct debit payments even in summer or hearing them say they cant sleep for worrying abou tthe fuel bills coming in,. I dont and havent owed a penny for gas or electric and have no such worrries so no actually I dont feel embarrassed at all when charging my keys up imm quite proud of the fact that I dont owe a penny! and Id also like to say that these prepayment meters are getting more and more popular - and the people getting them are not the 'lowest of the low' as soemone else described them - they are people who want to pay in advance - they dont ALL owe money and find this is the only way to pay it back - im sick and tired of people looking down their noses atthose who prefer to pay their fuel bills in this way describing them as the poorest and the most needy - we are mainly just ordinary people trying to pay in advance for something!

[Surfer01]

Only problem with PPMs is that it is the most expensive way to buy energy, but hopefully this descrepancy will be sorted out in the near future by the poweers that are!

[Poormum]

Well, they came today and the rep kept his word:o)