Why is Eon billing me for communal heating at flats?
Ms J.F. writes: I live in a small block of flats which has a communal boiler. We have one communal gas meter, and bills are paid by the block’s managing agents and then billed to leaseholders through service charges. However, I have been receiving emails, letters and calls from Eon, asking for my meter reading, and now I have received a demand for £3,658 dating back to 2013 when the flats were built.
THIS is one of the oddest utility customer problems I have ever had to investigate. Not only do you pay your gas bills as part of your service charges, but Eon is not even the gas supplier to your block of flats. You have not been able to make callers from Eon understand that you have no gas meter, and the meter number that Eon gave you is not the number shown on the communal meter that covers the block.
When I asked Eon to explain, I was told: ‘We set up the gas account based on information provided to us by the building company, and this led to us incorrectly issuing bills to Ms F.’
So far, so good. But why would Countryside Properties, the developer that built the flats, wait all these years and then suddenly tell Eon to send bills to you?
There are 17 other leaseholders in the block, so why hand over your details and nobody else’s?
At first, Countryside denied to you and me that it had told Eon to bill you. It insisted: ‘Countryside do not provide customer details to third parties.’ And it hinted that Eon could have got your name from Land Registry records or the local electoral register.
So, back to Eon, where further questioning revealed that Eon was actually given your name by a completely different company called AJR Management Limited, which was acting on behalf of Countryside. And Countryside told me that AJR’s job was to deal with ‘legacy utility issues’ involving a large number of developments.
AJR boss Andrew Read explained that his company had been hired in 2018 to sort out any problems arising from when Countryside handed over completed properties to buyers. AJR found that Eon had incorrectly opened an account in 2013 and incorrectly attached that account to your address, and it was holding Countryside responsible. AJR gave your name as the person who occupied the flat. The account was blocked, but AJR says: ‘Unfortunately, someone from Eon removed the block on this account in error, causing an invoice to be issued for eight years of estimated usage.’
I know you have been concerned that your details were handed over in an apparent breach of data protection rules. However, property developers are allowed to give utility companies the names of property buyers so bills can be issued to the right person.
What went wrong in this case was a series of errors that were not your fault in any way. You tried hard for months to sort this out yourself before contacting me, but nobody took real responsibility.
In a final statement, Countryside told me: ‘Following a misunderstanding by Eon, Ms F was sent bills in error.’ It is just a shame that it has taken months for all those concerned to identify this ‘misunderstanding’ which should have been clear from the start. Eon’s demands have now been scrapped.