A man who lives in a flat above a former pub with his partner and seven-month-old baby says he has had to pay for the entire building's electricity after the utility bills were not split. James Odieng, 53, moved into the property in Worksop during June last year, but over the last six months claims he has paid more than £2,000 in electricity bills.
James alleges that the utility bills were not separated for his flat and the rest of the building, which was not an issue at first as the building was empty. However, James says recent renovation works to transform the ground floor into two more residential units means he has been left with a hefty bill for electricity he has not been using.
In a bill seen by Nottinghamshire Live, James was asked to pay £1,056.13 for electricity between January 25 and February 21, 2023. The amount of electricity he was billed for was as much as nearly two full months of rent.
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He said: "The landlord turned the top flat into domestic use. I have been asking them to change the electricity bill into domestic since June last year and that has never been done.
"Then from October last year, they brought in builders to start building downstairs, so they are turning the old pub into two flats downstairs - they are using the electricity but I am paying for it. The landlord is not paying anything on it.
"The bill comes in my name so I have to pay it - the supplier threatened to take me to court so I had to use my last penny to pay suppliers so I am not able to move out." He described the entire situation as "frustrating".
When asked about the bill increase, James said: "The bills have never been high, the bills have been very moderate until they began with the building work." He added that there were a number of repairs that needed doing in the property relating to the windows and drainage, and "for the sake of my baby I keep reminding them to do the repair work".
One of the directors of Seagull Ltd, which is the landlord for the property, said: "First of all, we have a property upstairs and downstairs - we gave the property to William H Brown to fully manage as because we are living hundreds of miles away we do not have time to manage the property." They explained that as the estate agent was managing the property, they did not have direct contact with the tenant and the estate agent was in charge of managing the property and sorting problems.
The director added: "I told the estate agent before the tenant moved there are some works to be done. I told the estate agent to install the domestic meter on the top and then bill through him, but they have not done anything." They claimed the bills were initially being sent to themselves and that this needed to be changed to the tenant's name.
"I then told the electricity board that upstairs and downstairs are one bill, but nobody is living downstairs. Then when they started my building works, I told the estate agent I would continue paying half the electricity in his total bill," they added.
"I can't contact my tenant directly as I expect everything to be co-ordinated by my estate agent." They stated that there is currently one electricity line which "is not converted for the flat completely" but it will soon become three separate lines.
The current line is being used by the workforce downstairs, but they stated this is "only in the day time are people are working with a couple of lights". They added: "I told the estate agent we would pay half for the electricity bill."
The director said they feel the problems have been caused by "miscommunication" and they are looking to make it right. James claimed he was told his electricity and water would be shut off due to the problems with payments, which he feared would be "very traumatic" for his baby, but it has since been confirmed by the estate agent managing the property that this would have only been a temporary measure.
A William H Brown spokesperson said: "Our records show that any issues raised during the tenancy were resolved and that any complaint received was shared with and responded to by the landlord. This includes the question of utility bills where the landlord has already agreed to pay half, however, William H Brown is not responsible for the separation of utilities.
"Please note, the tenant was advised that there may be short outages in the supply of water and electricity due to building works – these will not be shut off for a protracted period. We continue to liaise with both the tenant and landlord to help resolve the situation as soon as possible."
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