palace of debt

It's not your name on the bill though - it simply ain't your problem.

Baliffs cannot touch your property, your name is not the bill.

Water bill: cutting off your water is only possible after a lengthy legal process.

What you should do is take control of this situation by ringing up the water company, explain that the named person on the bill is no longer a resident of the house, has not been for X time, and you would appreciate their credit department making note of this so nobody's inconvenienced.

However, someone's got to pay for water from now on. You should give them the actual meter reading for the water, put you and one other person's name on the bill, and then it's your responsibility to look after as long as you live there. When you move, you ring up the water company and close the account with a final meter reading and instructions to send the next bill to people living there.

we also had the electricity bill through, £288, although only £63 is from the last period, which means i'm probably going to end up paying partly for stuff that was there well before i moved in. then theres the landlords supply (£12), for the hall and stairs we share with the other 2 flats. they sent a note saying they'd been round to install a pre-pay meter because it was unpaid, but couldnt get access to the propertly because no one was in. next time, they will force entry and change the locks if necessary!

Call London Electricity and explain the situ. with the electricity. Give them a meter reading (it might be at odds with their estimate) and ask for a corrected bill to be sent. This buys time. Your landlord sounds pretty lax but has to be told about both bills. People in the house who were there for the billing period covered by the £288 bill have to pay in proportion and once that's done, close the account. the flat should however agree to start a new electricity account from 1 December.

Key meters are horrible, don't have one.

I've no idea what the deposit situation is in your flat but no landlord I've ever known gives back deposit without proof that the bills have been paid. So if the landlord still has the deposit, then he should take the cost of the electricity out of this money. However this guy does sound like an unscrupulous guy, you've got to be asking how you got that enormous room for that money. See if you can sort it then consider your position.

got a call from the water company a couple months back. apparently they CAN cut the water off if it is not registered to a name, ie if it is a business property. which ours is, so they needed a name, i gave them the landlords name...(it had gone up to £3300 by this point)

but then yesterday a new bill arrived. now this one was only for £345 and covered the period feb02-dec02, but IT HAD MY FLATMATES NAME ON IT! now, i'm assuming that the water people caught up with the landlord, and he said, ah thats the tenants responsibility, heres her name. that must be how it got on?

so i rang the water board last night, gave a false name, and said "who is this person on the bill? shouldnt it be the landlord on there?" and then asked how my flatmates name got on the bill, and when the last one had been paid. they wouldnt give this information.

so, i thought, ok, lets put the landlords name back on the bill, but they wouldnt have that either, they wanted one of the tenants. i told them that i had never heard of the person they had put on the bill, and gave them the name of one of my other flatmates (except of course i made the name up)

so its still a bit worrying. (i dont officially live at the property, my official address is elsewhere - precisely for this type of situation, so no one can prove i ever lived there). but isnt it a bit worrying that someone can just pop her name on the bill, and that i can do the same?

Now, because I moved in there just over a month after the other three, my name isn't on any official papers or bills and, I suppose, I don't officially live there. Obviously because I'm using gas and electricity and so forth like the others I don't mind chipping in for a quarter of the bills, that seems only fair.

When it comes to council tax I'm less sure. Essentially, my housemates mum claims to have worked the whole council tax thing out for us - two housemates are exempt from paying due to being full-time students, so its just myself and her son that should, technically, be liable. She claims she has paid my council tax contribution of about £150 for the six-month tenancy period (the fact that when I leave I'll only have been there for five months is neither here nor there), and that I can pay her back over the next couple of months. Then, when the council tax booklet appeared in the house a few days back, the other three names were on it but not mine. Obviously two of them are still exempt, but is there any chance that I'll still be liable? Or there a chance she's charging me for half of her son's council tax bill? It's just that, as I haven't actually signed a contract and don't officially live there, I can't really afford to fork out for a tax bill I don't legally have to pay. Any ideas?

I think you should pay her, but ask why she didn't ask at the time. You have still saved a fair bit - thirty quid a head isn't bad.

Gareth, the classification of the property must have changed to residential somewhere along the line else it is illegal for people to be living there (and the water rates you have been charged look like commercial ones) - to do this they water company would need the name of the sitting tenant or whoever pays the bill (they prefer sitting tenant actually). The £3400 may not have been paid, if the costs in chasing up a non-traceable person, or a mistake caused that then they will just wipe it out and start fresh.

Items you need to make a successful claim is proof on the amount of time you lived somewhere, proof of who lived their, proof of the inclusivity or non-inclusivity of the contract (do not actually need fully paid up contract for this - a copy of the original advert will do). Small claims courts are always the quickest and easiest way to sort this out after the fact.

Ah... I'm actually being charged £150 just for myself. If it was thirty quid a head I reckon I'd have coughed up without asking any questions. I did wonder why I wasn't being offered a contract to sign though, this might explain things. It's also worth mentioning that in two months time we'll all have moved out of this place, so I am quite happy not to pay it if I don't have to.

(I officially live at my parents house, by the way, where there are no such problems, obviously).

anyway, i move in with sister now for a while, i cant be bothered with it. i is south of river!

Except we are moving NORTH of the river! Nothing personal Gareth.

(And if you have a car or van can I borrow it?)

i have moved things, but will probably not move actual body, till actual shit happens, to give sister more room, then i have rent free till end of june, i save money for trip to texas and LA:)