A licensee has warned new freeholders to register their land registration documents with their utility company or face upfront costs.
Dirty Dick's: energy dispute
Sean Garvey, of Dirty Dick’s Ale House in Halifax, West Yorkshire, bought the freehold of the Enterprise Inns site, previously known as the Royal Oak, on 27 April.
He had to pay an extra £600 upfront in charges to energy firm Npower, which were later refunded, and had his electricity cut off, after a previous licensee at his pub failed to settle his bill.
Garvey said he had been receiving utility bills in the previous tenant’s name, even though he asked Npower to change the account details.
Npower said it would be unable to change the details until it received the property’s Land Registry documents. Garvey only received his documents on 15 June two months after buying the premises. He admitted an “oversight” in failing to send documents to Npower immediately. Npower said it made two pre-disconnection visits to the premises on 2 June and 21 June — but Garvey said he has no knowledge of it.
On 15 August the manager of Dirty Dick’s was visited by an Npower employee asking for the previous tenant and saying the premises would be disconnected unless payment of the outstanding balance was made.
Garvey, who was not on the premises, phoned head office where he was asked to send over the property’s deeds. As this took place, the Npower employee brought in two policemen to help shut off the pub’s electricity.
To have his electricity reconnected he had to pay £428 legal fees and a £150 re-connection charge. Garvey told other licensees: “Get the Land Registry documents in as soon as you can.”
Npower’s response
A spokesman said deciding to cut off a customer’s electricity is not taken lightly, and that it contacted Sean Garvey and his partner Kirsty Leach for the Land Registry documents but did not receive them.
The spokesman said: “While we sympathise with Mr Garvey, we do not feel we are at fault. We will only ever disconnect a customer’s supply when all options have been exhausted. We gave Mr Garvey numerous opportunities to produce the documents to prevent the disconnection.”
12 Sept 2011
Licensee warns of upfront utility bills
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