Previous tenant hasn’t paid bill owed

Long story short a tenant has recently left the property we’re renting and it was left on bad terms. All bills were paid and rent except for the energy bill. As most of you would know sometimes you can be left with a hefty bill at the end of the year if your energy provider hasn’t been checking on your usage and that’s basically what’s happened to us.

At the start of the tenancy we all agreed verbally to take one bill each. I put my name on the energy, one tenant did the broadband and the tenant that left was on the water. So all the monthly bills have been paid but now we have overpayment of the energy which is in my name.

I made the previous tenant aware as this is part of their use too but they blocked me, as well as speaking to their parents who also blocked me. I originally thought that I’d not be able to do much about this as it’s my name on the energy but I’ve recently discovered I’d have a pretty good record to show this tenant is liable to pay a 3rd of this bill, split equally between the 3 of us.

I have bank statements that will show the money for energy going into my account every month for the past 11 months, except for the last month where a new tenant was happy to pay it as they moved in. I can show proof of the tenancy also and the other tenant would obviously be able to show that they lived here. We also had an assault incident towards the other tenant that will be on police records and video evidence which we decided to not take further. So I feel I have a pretty good case against them. They are obviously aware of the payment as I’ve asked for it and have been blocked.

I am now thinking of writing a formal letter to the previous tenant asking them to pay a part of the outstanding payment or I will be forced to take it to small claims. I’m going to speak to citizens advice to get more information on how I can go about it all but I wanted to know if anyone has good advice or would know how to go about writing this letter.

Of course I will be going to the citizens either way but I wanted to see if anyone had some useful things to make sure to add to the letter

Have you discussed this with your landlord at all?

No. He left us to deal with this as he only managed the rent with us

So are you saying that this joint tenant, who has now left, was paying money into your account regularly according to his 'share' of the electricity bill as per the verbal agreement you made at the start of the tenancy. And now he has left, there is an amount outstanding which he should have paid but is refusing to?

Yes

We also had an assault incident towards the other tenant that will be on police records and video evidence which we decided to not take further. So I feel I have a pretty good case against them.

I think this will help against the fact that there is no written agreement about how the bills were to be divided. Would the other joint tenants be happy to support you in getting your money back? It would be good if they could. If so, I'd write a 'letter before action' to this errant tenant, delineating the money that is owed, how you have calculated, evidence for this calculation (eg the bill and maths for it) and a deadline for it to be paid, say 14 days. You need to state that you will issue a claim through the county court otherwise. I would be clear that your joint intention is to settle this matter witout having to resort to legal action. Get all the other joint tenants to sign it.


This is not relevant towards your money claim and should not form part of any letter etc.

Of course the assault is a separate matter that has been dealt with that wouldn’t be mentioned in this. It just shocks me that it wasn’t taken further when it could’ve been and the tenant is now trying to get away with more!

So there was 3 of us in total. The other tenant is my partner, who would be happy to support.

I have started writing a draft, do I write this in my name and just get the other tenant to sign with me at the bottom? Maybe I should state that the other tenant is paying a third of the bill as agreed. The energy account is in my name so I thought the letter would need to be written from me!

Thank you for your help. I wasn’t sure on the number of days before taking it further but it’s 14 days?