article from mse!
We have just received a letter from UK Search Limited debt collectors to say that we owe Southern Water £57.29 from our previous rented home that we moved out from just over four years ago.
They say that our account with Southern Water was assigned to someone called Southbank Capital Limited who are now legal owners of the account. UK Search say that they previously sent bills for the water supply to 'the address above' which I assume means our old address.
This all seems very odd as I remember when we moved out, the rental agency were very clear on us proving that we had paid all bills before vacating the property. Unfortunately as we haven't lived there for 4 years we have discarded the utility bills we had from back then some time ago, therefore we have no physical evidence that we did pay off all outstanding debts. However I am pretty sure we cleared everything as we would have lost our rental deposit without proof of bill payment. The other point is that we have certainly received no other contact from Southern Water since then, either directly or forwarded from our old address. Strangely, though, our current water supplier is Southern Water and they haven't mentioned it!
So, where do we stand? UK Search are asking us to contact them if we didn't receive any bills from Southern 'at the address above'. Should I really contact Southern Water firstly and how would I be able to prove that I don't owe them anything given that we haven't kept any old bills? Do we actually have a case legally of not doing anything seeing as we haven't been notified directly by Southern Water in four years? Would a court dismiss UK Search's claim due to the time delay and non contact? Is a customer exempt from payment after four years?! Is this debt collector just trying it on?
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