ENERGY companies are still relying on closed magistrates’ court hearings to secure warrants against households with unpaid bills, more than three years after the pre-payment meter scandal.Magistrates are still sitting in private to authorise forced entry, often approving hundreds of warrants at a time based on applications they have never personally reviewed, an investigation by the Standard newspaper revealed yesterday.
I had them break into my vacant house, which I was selling, because of an unpaid electricity bill. They claimed they had made every reasonable effort to contact me (which the law requires). Which apparently did not extend to phoning the estate agents number on the ‘for sale’ board they walked past to serve notice, and again to actually break in. After I threatened them with the ombudsman, Shell Energy agreed to replace the PAYG meter they illigally installed, paid to repair the damage and wrote off the £45 debt that prompted the action.