Gas charged for 6 months that isn’t used in the house?

My advice is to do what you say and talk to the energy ombudsman. I had to raise a case against Octopus because they were not billing me and sending very useless replies to my regular weekly chase emails.
It didn’t take long to raise the case with the ombudsman and provide my evidence in PDF format, and once they subsequently raised the issue with Octopus, it didn’t take long for Octopus to fix the problem and apologise for their poor customer service.

I should caveat my reply with it being on my own personal property, not on a rental.

“Mid Landlord”. Thanks very much, appreciated and made my day. I will action it. John

If your gong to approach the ombudsman, take the time to present all the information in a clearly defined order. They are very busy and much more likely to deal with the case that is neatly laid out than the one that is a mess of paperwork that they have to trawl through and organise.

Hi John
I had a similar problem some years ago when I did a strip out including removal of the gas supply system from a development; this included the gas infrastructure owner (can’t recall the name offhand) digging up the road outside my curtilage and capping off the supply at the mains. After an exhausting chain of calls and correspondence with the gas provider, they agreed to stop charging me if I returned the meter to them; in the end they came and collected it from the property.
I hope that this helps.
Regards
Peter

Not much different from having a car you never drive parked on the road. You still have to pay the road tax.

You are paying a standing charge for the meter whether it is connected or not. Same for the electricity meter. Juice witch off at the mains fuse but you still pay the standing charge.

If the meter is disconnected, remove it and send back to Octopus recorded delivery/parcel signed for.

I agree, after a conversion from two flats to a single house we had a meter removed – a year later we started to get bills for the non existent meter even one where they had apparently read the non existent meter.

The ombudsman worked wonders after British Gas ignored my complaints and threatened debt collectors.

Dear John,
If you are registered with Octopus via e-mail, you just need to call them and send photos of the disconnected/capped off supply and showing the meter’s serial number from your e-mail account to “[email protected]”. Your e-mail is registered against your account and name, so the photos will be immediately logged against your account. I know as I had exactly the same issue two weeks ago with them with the meter laying in the middle of a room and the supply all capped off. They are falling over themselves to fit smart meters (if you don’t already have one) and they replyed the very next day to organise collection of the old meter. My supply will not be reconnected for another six months, so I’ll worry about that nearer the time! Hope that’s of help.

I believe you are required to have raised a complaint directly with the company through their complaints procedure before you can escalate it the ombudsman(?) Electricity companies are horrendous these days. I’ve raised complaints with two separate companies in as many months, (British Gas & EDF, both are woeful!)
The complaints go to a different department and I’ve found in the past that issues have been successfully dealt with at that point.

I had similar problem – the gas boiler was condemned because of now illegal communal flue and was replaced by an electric boiler. EDF wanted a lot of money to remove the gas meter as an independent gas transporter was also involved. When the tenant had switched to SSE we found out they would remove the gas meter at no charge!

Reply to the comment left by John Grefe at 12/10/2023 – 09:45
Give them a chance to resolve this matter if no joy report a official complaint to ombudsman they don’t want this because it cost the a immediate £500 once you do this , ifno joy proceed.