When you purchased it and moved in, did you take any readings? Or are you still in contact with the previous owners who should have taken closing readings. You mean that the supplier to the old peoples home at the date the tenancy changed was TG&P? Why did you fail to enter into a contract? Are there any mitigating circumstances? This is where you confuse me. Do you mean you ARE a charity BUT you haven't told TG&P or do you mean you haven't registered with the Charity Commision, hence are not a Charity. if not a CHarity what legal status/entity is the Homeless Organisation? 5% VAT could be because usage is below the De Minimis level OR it could be because more than 60% of the property is non-business (ie residential) and TG&P are still applying the Old People's home rate of VAT because the previosu occupiers submitted the appropriate form. If you haven't submitted a 5% claim form then you should complete one. I'm presuming you are not VAT registered so VAT is a real cost and you don't want them to increase the VAT to 20% on the £7,700 when they realise that it was the previous occupiers and not you that submitted the 5% form. See above re "domestic" VAT The M Line is the name for the domestic queries of XO Serve. As your's is a Commerical Meter you should call 0845 601 3049. Have your Meter Serial Nmber from the front of the meter to hand, tey will either tell you it is "Shipperless" or will tell you who the supplier is. However that is not the end of the story. You may not be on the National Grid Transco network and e on an IGT network see here: http://www.energylinx.co.uk/independent_gas_transporters.htm So the Old People's Home didn't pay for Gas either? Can you make up your mind. Have you received a letter with no detail demanding £7,700 or have you received a standard bill (opening reading, closing reading etc demanding £7,700? Is that a reading of 149000 as you state or is there a reading with a calculation showing how they converted X no of units to 149,000kWh? Other questions: Is there a label on the meter giving the install date? Does it say m3 or ft3 on the front of the meter.

Ok there is a host of new information here that changes things again. I'll reply later as busy now, but in the meantime is there anything else you wish to share? A photo of the meter clearly showing serial number and reading would help, it should also have a sticker on it with the install date. Residential vs Business IS relevant and I'll explain why later. Shipperless supply is also very relevant

If you didn;t get in touch with them to say you were the new occupier you are therefore relying on the previous occupier to tell them they've moved out! Presumably in the first 3 months bills were going to another address relating to the billing address for the previous occupier (bills don'thave have to go to the premise's where the energy is consumed e.g. ASDA stores won't get energy bills at every store they will all go to the Leeds head office). hence I suspect after 3 months the business that moved out infomed EDF that they had moved out and hence you got a bill. You've given me the bottom line not the top line of the MPAN. However you answered the question that the top line would establish that it was a Half Hourly meter. Your top line will have changed when you changed the meter class. What is it now? You've now done the best thing to lower your cost and moved it to a non-half-hourly meter class with a low standing charge (contract or variable rate?) hence you'll just have to take the £1000 on the chin as a lesson learnt in business to ensure that whenever taking over or moving out of premises utility supplies are one of the first things to arrange. However now you've downgraded the supply, if when you come to move out or start using lots of energy then it is very hard to get the Available Capacity you've given up back without a 5 figure investment, so hopefully you'll not need to use lot's of energy e.g. it is now less rentable to a manufacturing tenant. To explain the charges above: Availibility Charge - this is a reservation fee as such which reserves your building 120/1000th's of the local substation exclusively (I'm assuming it's a 1000kVa rated substation for illustration purposes). Standing Charge - this covers all sorts of sub-charges like a harge for maintaining the cables and infrastructure, the charge for transporting the energy from the power station to your door etc etc. In Britain the large users pay a higher percentage of the infrastructure costs via higher standing charges and other complex line items, you had a half-hourly i.e. high user, meter and hence you are contributing your share to the country's infrastructure.

madpriest: as it is a shelter for the homeless what rate of VAT are they charging you? (I actually have a homeless shelter as a client)

Mods: There is another thread on this £7,700 issue and I have answered that question there. Can you merge the 2 threads please to avoid people giving misleading advice. e.g. ihateyes - they are entitled to go back 6 years as this is a business account. The other thread is here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?297493-Business-Electricity-EDF-Energy-New-Proprietor Please extract the posts relating to the £7,700 and move here.

I assume you mean no one's read the meter since September 2008. Have you asked for a copy of this letter and proof of delivery if they are saying they have sent it recorded. Who are "they" - by letter or on the phone? In what sense is it then a bill? Is it just a letter asking for £7,700? Have you asked them to provide you with an invoice to match i.e. one with calculation showing how they got to £7,700. e.g. Opening read(s), closing read(s), rate per kWh, conversion factor, calorific value, standing charges, meter serial number, CCL, VAT etc etc Have you recorded any readings at all? e.g. at least one when you moved in and one when the £7,700 bill landed on your doorstep.

If you are a business and you did nothing to get a contract (ie you were aware that electricity was supplied to the premises but didn't make an effort to pay for it) then all you can do is check to see whether the bill is calculated correctly (lot's of things to check and not all on the bill) and then negotiate or you may get lucky if you have mitigating circumstances e.g. recorded phone calls showing that you did try and find out who your supplier was when you first took over responsibility for the premises. We see this time and time again, but business's don't like to pay for our services (share of savings) thinking they can do it themselves for free then get hit with large back bills at that point they come running back to us. Like a lawyer or tax expert it's better to engage early for a cost and avoid situations than to bring them in when things go wrong. If you put the full story, bill detail etc of your £7,700 here I'll let you know if there's anything you can do to reduce it.

yes it's enforeceable (though I'm not a lawyer and you should take legal advice not rely on this bulletin) The Electricity Act 1989 Paragrpah 3 of Schedule 6: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/29/schedule/6 From EDF's Deemed Contract T&C's: A Paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 to the Electricity Act 1989 (the “Electricity Act Schedule”) provides for contracts to be deemed to have been made between electricity suppliers and owners or occupiers of premises in circumstances described at paragraphs 3(1) and (2) of the Electricity Act Schedule; B Paragraph 3(6) of the Electricity Act Schedule requires the express terms and conditions of such a contract (a “Deemed Contract”) to be provided for in a scheme made under paragraph 3 (a “Deemed Contract Scheme”); and C Paragraph 3(9) of the Electricity Act Schedule provides for a Deemed Contract Scheme to make different provision for different cases or classes of cases, or for different areas, determined by or in accordance with the provisions of the Deemed Contract Scheme .

Bankfodder - don't comment if you don't know what you are talking about. Out of Contract rates are standard for Business Supply points and he may very well owe them money. The residential equivalent would be "Standard Tariff" i.e. their highest. Stickytoffee - it sounds like you have what is known as a half-hourly meter OR they have used high estimated readings at out of contract rates, or even worse both. Can you let me have a little bit more detail and I can advise better. 1) On the bill will be an MPAN number, it will be in a grid like box example picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_Point_Administration_Number, can you let us know the top line please. 2) Have they billed using estimated readings or actual readings? 3) Are the readings used increasing month to month or are they taying the same? 4) How does the £300 charge per month breakdown on the invoice, what wording is beside each element of the charge? Please give as much detail as you can. Even if there is no usage you are still liable for standing charges unless you have the meter removed and/or de-energised. There are a few other options but advice will differ depending on the supply type, hence request for top line of the MPAN. There are also low standing charge contracts which can minimise your cost but these need to be carefully considered as the unit rates per kWh are extremely high should you decide to start using energy through the meter at a later date.

MPAN's are extremely rarely on the meter and if they are they will be on a sticker/card and handwritten. The Meter Serial Number (MSN) will be on the meter. Many people confuse MPAN and MSN.

Happy to advise. Can you please provide more detail. x10 errors are common, but it needs to be handled carefully. If you can put as much information from the bill as possible in the thread, openign reading, closing reading, kWh used etc etc and if you can insert a photo of the meter as well then we can give better advice.

Get the largest measuring jug or other vessel you know the litre capacity of. Run your tap until it fills it and time how long it took (at about the same flow rate as you think you left it on at) Then use that info to work out how much water you think you used during the day it was left on in litres. Check your last water bill for cost per litre (if it's in cost per m3 then you'll need to do a conversion) and then multiply the 2 to get your potential extra cost. If that extra cost is expensive to you (as we all have different standards) then call your water company explain the situation calmly and they may write it off as a gesture of goodwill. If you go in ranting and raving then hey won't help.

I think for your peace of mind an electrician would be good. However if you reported a potential fire hazard concern to the managing agents for the building they will no doubt be obnliged to send out an electrician so saving you the cost. Perhaps email them a link to this thread rather than try and explain it to them on the phone.

What most people seem to fail to grasp from UW's marketing material and also what the poorly trained UW Distributors fail to grasp, not their fault the training only teaches you how to sell NOT anything about the products they are selling, is that they promise to be cheaper than British Gas STANDARD Electricity and STANDARD Gas. Standard is actually a tariff name at British Gas and is British Gas's highest tariff and only people that have been with BG for many years are likely to be on it. It is easy to be cheaper than BG Standard. UW is expensive when compared to the majority of tariffs found by either calling any energy company directly or by using a comparison website or the energy co's own websites. Even Shining Light above fails to include the word Standard in his wording and is therefore making a misleading statement, I'm sure he didn't do it deliberately he has just been poorly trained by UW. Any UW distributor that tells you they are the cheapest is actually going against OFGEM's licence conditions and you should report them to UW. As the poster above points out, none of UW's material says they are the cheapest. (I know about the training because I've been on the training, but because of the flaws in their marketing material I've never sold a single UW product nor use them myself).

If it's "rough looking" with wires sticking out of the side and your cinsumption has increased massively over the previous occupants, perhaps a dodgy neighbour is leeching off your energy supply. No meter or fuse box should be "rough looking" sounds like a fire hazard at least.

I wouldn't necessarily believe that the E-on employee read your meter correctly. There are many different reasons that it might be correct or incorrect at £10k. First need to establish the facts 1) On or around the date you moved in did you take a meter read? 2) Did you or the HA inform the gas company of a change of tenancy? 3) When you changed supplier did you record a reading on or around the switch date? 4) Do you have bills going back 4 years? 5) Do you have any photographic evidence of the readings? 6) Has the meter been the same meter since you moved in or has it been changed? 7) Lots more questions but one's which viewing copies of the bills and a photo of the meter would easily resolve I'll send you a private message with my email address, send me a copy of the bills, a current meter photo and history of readings you've taken (it's crucial that the reading AND meter serial number are clearly visible) and I'll put my response back on this forum (ie not keeping things secret in the spirit of openness of the forum).

If the night read looks odd compared to the door agent. Then the way to resolve who is reading it correctly is to take a photo of the reading and when you next speak to BG ask them for an email address to send the photo to.

The start point here is why does she owe them a lot of money? Is it inability to pay over a long time, or is it E-on not billing for a long time, or is it possibly a billing error. I've seen bills 10x too high due to a billing error. Need to start with understanding whether the bill is correct or not.

At £95 a month for 2 storage heaters sounds like you are either on the wrong tariff (ie an expensive one) or there might be a meter problem (e.g. day charged as night and vice versa). From your last bill can you provide the following: 1) kWh (kilowatt hours) used Day & Night (also called peak and off-peak). Or if the split is not specified then just the number of kWh's. 2) The start read date, the end read date (doesn't matter if estimated or actual) 3) The cost per kWh - usually described in pence and might be anything between 5p and 20p 4) A pence per day rate / £ per quarter / £ per month type of charge. Anything else relating to the charges that you think is relevant.

Is the rateable value they've used correct? Check your Rates bill and also the VOA website. Does the detailed calculation on the second page match with what they are saying here? i.e they are only charging site area charge from Apr 08 Is your whole premise NON-permeable? i.e. tarmac, roof's etc is there any grass/soil areas where the water could drain into the water table and not into their drains/sewers? Is this the area of your site, measure your boundaries and calculate the area. If it's coming in around 650m2 then get a professional surveyor to confirm that it is under and then you'll fall into the next charge band down hence cheaper. If it's bordering on going into the next charge band up then ti might be worth trying to get a loan from the bank to pay it as challenging it in court may lead to them spotting that the area is larger.

Is this a Business or Residential property as the rules are very different.

When they replaced the meter they should have left a postcard sized card with the final readings for the old meter. If that card is there, can you note here the reading, date of reading AND also from your first bill the opening reading when you moved into the premises. If you pm me and fax/email me the bills from the start and any additional readings that you have noted down, I'll take a quick scan and come back with some advice if there is anything obviously wrong. Surfer above also has some good questions for you to answer.

Dx - PM me with a photo of the meter (close up of the meter reading AND the meter serial number AND near the reading it will have m3 or ft2) and also if their is a label on it with an install date and install reading (usually handwritten) please also provide that. Also can I see a copy of the latest bill in the first instance. Will see if there is anything that catches my eye as obviously wrong and provide help if I can.

Apart from your telephone bill do you have any other records? e.g. date, time and name for each conversation you had and the gist of each conversation? Did they issue a new invoice that shows the £350.27 and the period that it covered. Have you had a refund from BGB for the monies paid to them? And what Estimated readings over what period do the BGB bills show? Do you have the agreed E-on "arrangement" in writing? Who do MPAS (Google MPAS and choose your region from the top result website) have listed as the current supplier E-on or BGB How many Actual reads do you have and over what period? Use these to create a backdated estimate you'll then know if the 2000 is a fair back projection or not.

OFGEM have defined a microbusiness in Legislation as set out in article 2(1) of the Gas and Electricity Regulated Providers (Redress Scheme) Order 2008 [s.I.2008/2268] a) Consumes less than 200,000kWh of Gas OR b) Consumes less than 55,000kWh of Electricity OR c) Has fewer than 10 employees AND an Annual Turnover OR Annual Balance sheet total not exceeding 2m Euros Hence your definition, or Cruickshank's definition is unfortunately irrelevant.