A bill arrives for four times the usual amount. Or a bill arrives for a building you left eighteen months ago. Or no bill arrives for a year and then one does, for the whole year. Energy billing goes wrong more often than it should, and the frustrating part is rarely the error itself. It is working out who is responsible for fixing it and how long you are expected to wait.
The short version
- The supply contract is with the supplier, so billing and metering are ultimately theirs to fix.
- Suppliers cannot usually back-bill a microbusiness beyond 12 months. Larger businesses are not protected.
- Estimated readings cause most disputes, and an actual reading resolves most of them.
- Put everything in writing and keep dated meter photographs.
- Eight weeks or a deadlock letter and you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman, free.
On this page
Who is responsible for what
This confuses almost everybody, and knowing it saves a lot of wasted phone calls.
| Who | Responsible for |
|---|---|
| Your supplier | The bill, the tariff, the account, and resolving billing disputes. Your supply contract is with them. |
| Your network operator | The physical wires and pipes, and power cuts. You do not choose them and you do not pay them directly. |
| The meter operator | The meter itself, including faults, exchanges and some readings. |
| Your broker | The contract they arranged, chasing on your behalf, and knowing who to push. They cannot change your bill. |
| The Energy Ombudsman | Independent resolution once the supplier's complaints process is exhausted. |
The line that matters: only the supplier can correct a bill. A broker can chase, escalate, interpret and argue, but the correction itself happens on the supplier's system. Anyone promising otherwise is overselling.
The problems we see most
- Estimated readings. The single biggest cause. The bill is a guess, the guess is high, and it compounds until somebody submits a real reading.
- Change of tenancy gone wrong. You are billed for a previous occupier's usage, or still billed for premises you left. Our guide to moving premises and your energy supply covers getting this right at both ends.
- Deemed rates nobody mentioned. You moved in, started using energy, and are being charged the most expensive rates available because no contract was ever agreed.
- A catch-up bill after months of silence. Nothing arrives for a long period, then a single large bill does.
- The wrong meter. Genuinely common in multi-unit buildings, where you have been paying for next door for years.
- VAT and CCL applied wrongly. Low usage businesses often qualify for reduced VAT and no Climate Change Levy and are charged both anyway. Our post on reading a business energy bill explains the thresholds.
The back-billing rule worth knowing
If a supplier sends you a large bill for energy used a long time ago, there is a rule that may help, and it is not widely known among businesses.
Suppliers generally cannot charge for energy used more than 12 months before the date of the bill, where the customer is not at fault. It applies regardless of meter type or payment method, and a supplier's own failure to bill you does not reset the clock. Nor does your not having submitted a reading.
The important limitation: this protection covers domestic customers and microbusinesses. It does not extend to larger non-domestic customers. So whether you are covered depends on whether your business meets the microbusiness definition, which is based on employee numbers and consumption. If you are close to the line, it is worth establishing which side of it you sit on before you argue.
There are exceptions where the customer has been at fault, for example blocking access to the meter, ignoring requests for payment, or theft. A supplier choosing to back-bill beyond 12 months on those grounds should be able to evidence why.
What a broker can and cannot do
Being honest about this is more useful than pretending.
What we can do:
- Read the bill properly and work out whether it is actually wrong, which is not always obvious.
- Tell you whether the rates being charged match the contract that was agreed.
- Raise it with the supplier on your behalf, to the right team, with the account details already to hand.
- Chase it, repeatedly, without you spending your morning in a queue.
- Tell you when the supplier is right and you are wrong, which happens.
- Help you escalate, including to the Energy Ombudsman if it comes to that.
What we cannot do:
- Change the bill. Only the supplier can do that.
- Override a contract you signed, including one you now regret.
- Make a meter dispute move faster than the meter operator will move.
- Stop a legitimate charge from being legitimate.
The value is in knowing which of those you are dealing with quickly, rather than spending three weeks arguing about something that was always going to be payable.
How to escalate properly
- Submit an actual meter reading and ask for the bill to be reissued. This resolves a surprising proportion of disputes before they become disputes.
- Raise a formal complaint, in writing, using the supplier's complaints process. Not a phone call. Get a reference number.
- Keep paying what is not in dispute. Withholding the whole amount weakens your position and can trigger debt processes.
- Keep the evidence. Dated meter photographs, your tenancy dates, correspondence, reference numbers.
- After eight weeks, or on a deadlock letter, take it to the Energy Ombudsman. It is free, independent, and binding on the supplier if you accept the outcome.
Note the eight weeks. Energy uses a longer window than telecoms, where the equivalent scheme opens at six. It is worth diarising the date you complained so you know exactly when the ombudsman route opens rather than waiting indefinitely for a supplier to come back.
Preventing most of it
Most billing disputes are avoidable, and the preventions are dull.
- Submit readings regularly, or have a meter that does it for you. Estimates are the root of most problems.
- Photograph the meter when you move in and when you move out, with the date visible. It settles change of tenancy arguments instantly.
- Never let a contract lapse, because deemed rates look like a billing error and are not.
- Check the first bill after any change of contract, supplier or premises. Errors appear there and are easiest to fix early.
- Check your VAT and CCL treatment once, particularly if you are a low usage site.
- Know whether you are a microbusiness, because several protections depend on it.
Bill looks wrong? Send it to us
We will tell you whether it is actually wrong, what the rates should be against your contract, and whether any of the protections apply to you. If it turns out to be payable we will tell you that too, which saves you three weeks of arguing.