Help please - Gas disconnected
Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 11:20 pm
Hi All,
We actually have a holiday apartment in Costa del sol not in your area but your forum seemed very up to date so I hope you don't mind the intrusion from someone a bit further south!
Anyway we bought this place in August 2014, a Spanish solicitor with London offices handled the purchase and this included setting up our Spanish bank account and all the utilities and direct debits for these. All went well and we use the place just during every school holiday except Christmas which equates to about 12 weeks a year. Every other month Endesa Energy takes around 135-140 euros with more coming out in summer when we re here for longer and we assumed these amounts were for both gas and electric although we have never saw a paper bill.July and Augusts are around 450 euros so we thought that seemed about right for both electric & gas. We have had bills for gas sent here to the address from gas natural Andalucia for some bi-monthly amounts but these bills were to the address not us personally so we assumed this was an error and the bills were not ours as our solicitors had set up all our utilities accounts as previously mentioned. Now fast forward to this week and we have arrived here to find our gas has been disconnected, the meter outside is locked with a padlock but we have had no correspondence by mail or otherwise. We have called the solicitors but the person who handled was "unavailable " and we were told someone would look into this and get back to us but they wouldn't say when. I realise this is all a bit ambiguous but wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience and could give advice, we have tried to call both Endesa and gas natural Andulucia but I'm afraid my limited Spanish couple with my Geordie accent led me straight into a brick wall. No problem paying our way but obviously when a solicitor says they have set up a direct debit and money comes out the account to an energy company you assume all is well and if we actually should have been paying gas natural Andulucia would it really have taken them 18 months or so to disconnect the account? Anyway as it stands we are out here until Sunday with our 3 young children and we can't bath or shower them so any advice would be great just in case the solicitor doesn't get back to us. Thanks
We actually have a holiday apartment in Costa del sol not in your area but your forum seemed very up to date so I hope you don't mind the intrusion from someone a bit further south!
Anyway we bought this place in August 2014, a Spanish solicitor with London offices handled the purchase and this included setting up our Spanish bank account and all the utilities and direct debits for these. All went well and we use the place just during every school holiday except Christmas which equates to about 12 weeks a year. Every other month Endesa Energy takes around 135-140 euros with more coming out in summer when we re here for longer and we assumed these amounts were for both gas and electric although we have never saw a paper bill.July and Augusts are around 450 euros so we thought that seemed about right for both electric & gas. We have had bills for gas sent here to the address from gas natural Andalucia for some bi-monthly amounts but these bills were to the address not us personally so we assumed this was an error and the bills were not ours as our solicitors had set up all our utilities accounts as previously mentioned. Now fast forward to this week and we have arrived here to find our gas has been disconnected, the meter outside is locked with a padlock but we have had no correspondence by mail or otherwise. We have called the solicitors but the person who handled was "unavailable " and we were told someone would look into this and get back to us but they wouldn't say when. I realise this is all a bit ambiguous but wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience and could give advice, we have tried to call both Endesa and gas natural Andulucia but I'm afraid my limited Spanish couple with my Geordie accent led me straight into a brick wall. No problem paying our way but obviously when a solicitor says they have set up a direct debit and money comes out the account to an energy company you assume all is well and if we actually should have been paying gas natural Andulucia would it really have taken them 18 months or so to disconnect the account? Anyway as it stands we are out here until Sunday with our 3 young children and we can't bath or shower them so any advice would be great just in case the solicitor doesn't get back to us. Thanks