Hello

A couple I know have for the last 4 months been rented a 3 bedroomed property.

In November their energy company contacted them advising that a £13k bill had accrued since they moved in.

The couple had a gas engineer look at the boiler and saw that a condemned sticker had been removed, this was prior to them moving in.

The engineer tested the system and it was discovered that the system was burning gas at £35.00 per hour.

After this the couple rang the letting agency and explained the situation.

It took them 6 weeks to do something about this and the couple had to buy electric heaters and keep them going 24/7 has the rooms were really cold.

Have they got claim for compensation against the letting agency for this?

Thanks

No gas safety certificate which would be legal requirement. If there is one, it must be dodgy ?

See this ending up in court. Suing the landlord/agency for excess usage. Don't know how this would be worked out. There are probably experts who will provide a report for use in court and they will know the legal situation.

Do they have a Home Insurance legal Insurance or other such cover via say Trade Union membership ? If so, this might help pay some legal costs.

There is a gas safe certificate dated Jan 17.

Ill see if they have any insurance.

The Gas safety Certificate should have the Name, registration number and signature of the engineer who carried out the check. (Does it?)

If the registration is there as it should check it out on the Gas Safety Register: https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/find-an-engineer/

I think I would start off by getting an independent inspection of the boiler from a certified gas inspector of your choosing – and you will pay for it.

On the basis of what you say, the boiler will fail its inspection and the certificate will be refused. Once you have that then you have a good basis for saying that the certificate which you already have is in fact been issued fraudulently. If you can get this then come back here

landlord responsible, not letting agency unless you can prove the LA removed the sticker and even then they may claim LL told them to (crap defence but anyone breaking the law will clutch at straws).

I cant see that a dodgy boiler will eat £35/hr's worth of gas, the pipes wont be big enough to feed that amount of gas into the boiler, there must be something else wrong as well.

The story is a bit unclear because it says the gas engineer tested the system before they moved in, and they have been using electric heaters. Yet a large bill has still been raised. The gas engineer should have condemned the boiler again based on the story.

I cant see that a dodgy boiler will eat £35/hr's worth of gas, the pipes wont be big enough to feed that amount of gas into the boiler, there must be something else wrong as well.

Yes this does seem unlikely. If true then either the gas is being burnt and would destroy (melt) the boiler, or it is not and there would be a tremendous smell of gas around the property.

The meter readings and/or the meter probably need to be checked too.

The gas certificate could be legitimate, but the sticker added later (when the boiler went wrong).

I believe the "Prior to them moving in" part was in reference to the removal of the condemned sticker, not when their own engineer inspected the boiler.

how old is the meter and does it read in cubic feet or cubic metres? if the former then I would suggest that the bill is based on cu metres and thus about 28 times too high.