Legal advice: Disputes with energy suppliers

Related tags Legal terms

The escalating cost of energy supply to pubs has received a lot of publicity recently with many complaints from licensees that they are locked into a...

The escalating cost of energy supply to pubs has received a lot of publicity recently with many complaints from licensees that they are locked into a commercial contract with no way out.

Common causes for complaint are that bills are inaccurate because they are based on estimated readings or new and previous occupants don't contact their energy supplier and give them the meter readings for the property, resulting in the wrong person being billed.

Another problem arises where the tariff for the energy supply is completely inappropriate for the level of usage. A property may, for example, be on a half-hourly billing tariff, resulting in considerable cost to the occupier.

The energy supplier may be charging on the wrong contract terms. When a property which was previously tenanted becomes vacant, energy suppliers even have the power to deem a contract to have arisen with the landlord under Schedule 4 of the Utilities Act 2000. The energy supplier may base this deemed contract on onerous terms, such as a daily standing charge, even when nobody is in occupation.

Help at hand

Organisations such as Energywatch may be able to help where disputes arise, although it has no formal power to resolve them.

There is some hope, however. In one case a pub had been charged over £14,000 on an uneconomic half-hourly tariff over a period of 20 months - which the owner disputed with the energy supplier for more than three years.

Challenged by lawyers, the energy supplier wrote the entire amount off. In another case a deemed contract arising when a property became vacant was disputed, resulting in the £3,500 bill being halved.

Related topics Legislation

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