previous tenants, electricity bills

Really, you should just go for the free electricity.

But don't worry about your chums: utility bills from places where you used to live are a joke. They are the first bills you sneeze on. The money they discuss is imaginary, and the consequences mere dreams.

I'd just make sure your bills are sorted "properly" - meters read etc - without worrying too much about your friends of friends. You'll be bombarded with mail from debt collection agencies which you can bin or return to sender. It might be in the previous tenants interests to pay up - unpaid debts are likely to catch up with them at some point (usually applying for loans/mortgages), particularly if the utility bills are in one person's name (but should be paid between all the previous residents). And it's probably worth being aware that bad debts at an address can impact on the following tenants.

bad debts at an address can impact on the following tenants

Yikes - is this true?

i'd be in strong favour of a 'cy own a' strategy, just in case.

My experience of this was for a few months after previous tenants absconded without paying rent or bills we got several letters from debt collection agencies addressed to them, which we threw away, and nothing happened. So I don't know how much it does impact on the following tenants - we were worried about bailiffs turning up at the door but that didn't happen. The police did once, but once they determined I was not the person they were looking for, they were on their way.

I'm less worried about bailiffs - I can just show them a copy of my lease - than some kind of unfair bad credit shenanigans.

'return to sender' or 'previous tenant moved away' notes to the company in question is prob your best option to avoid that

I have heard that an address can have bad credit - it hasn't been an issue for me but I already had mobile phone/broadband/Sky contracts from my previous address that I just moved over, which might be a different situation to being a new customer. I guess I'll find out if we end up changing our broadband.

In Aus I'm pretty sure there's a law that if the company hasnt got its shit together and billed you, all debts after 6 months have to be waived. Its happened to me before once. 18 months of back charges from no invoices, and I only ended up paying 6. Suited me!

Dont know how that applies in the UK tho.

I really despise bailiff companies - a number of letters have turned up for a previous tenant about every six months, from the same damned firm of bailiffs, and it's like they rounded up all the Londoners suffering from adult aftereffects of foetal alcohol syndrome and employed them in this one office. Me: no, the person no longer lives there and funnily enough, I do not have time to photocopy my bills to send to you to prove my own residence, but if you send a bailiff to my home when I have told you your debtor is not here and referred you to my landord's office to verify, I will rip his nuts off.

Addresses can have bad credit, but you can absolve yourself of blame with credit agencies by telling them you aren't the person at the address who racked up all the debt.

any tips on "good" lecky companies in london? starting fresh, might as well see what's out there

though as you can see, actually doing the research myself is a bridge too far

I once moved out of a place, and asked for the final bill (telephone, in this case). Received one for the flat above, notified them of their mistake, and... nothing.

Eventually I received a letter from debt collectors and they'd put me down on a credit blacklist, and I couldn't sign up for a bunch of stuff (which was no big deal). I contacted them and paid the bill, but they didn't remove the black mark. I think it's gone now, after five or seven years.

Im always paranoid of that happening and just being completely unaware of it.

any tips on "good" lecky companies in london? starting fresh, might as well see what's out there

I don't know which ones are 'good', but my experience with switching from EDF was frustrating. They kept re-taking over the electricity supply, so every few months we'd randomly get bills from EDF, have to cancel the account again, and re-sign up with our other supplier. After about 8 months and many phone calls they stopped.

Ecotricity, despite not billing me for a year were quite painless once they sorted that out.

yeah i'm happy with ecotricity.

weird about EDF not "letting go". they seem dodgy in general what with all the nukes. i'd rather not use them. will check out the propagandishly-named ecotricity.

looks like Ecotricity get 18% of their power from nukes but that's still pretty good vs EDF's 90% (!!)

Fucking hell, not even the Hulk got 90% of his power from nukes

EDF = French = Lots of Nuke plants in France

OK, that's it. How do I switch? I want off evil EDF since they've started spamming me. Grrr.