Receiving utility bills for time when we didn’t own the property
Hi everyone,
Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but just after some advice on what to do in my situation.
Partner and I completed on our house on April 14th. Took metre readings, and decided we wanted to switch from British Gas to Octopus. Gave our metre readings to Octopus and set up an account with them. Octopus says they sort the switching process. We also gave our readings to British Gas via support chat (we could not make an account because we didn’t have the letter with the account information yet) and told them we would be switching. We’ve had payment taken from Octopus energy so that’s all confirmed to be set up.
A note: Our seller left us a note that said ‘not to worry about the British Gas bills’ because she is ‘sorting it’.
Now we have gotten a final utility bill dated this month, covering from October 2023 to a few days after we completed for nearly £3k, addressed to ‘the occupier’. When we try to call British Gas it asks us for an account number and date of birth registered to the account. There is an account number written on the bill addressed to the occupier but this is not our account so we don’t know the date of birth. We have tried emailing them too but it just says to call them.
Now we are stuck and not sure what to do, and this bill says it has to be paid by May 18th.
Should I just start forwarding these bills to the previous owner’s new address? Has anyone had to deal with anything similar?
(In England)