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Come on man, how the hell are you going to buy a house and not obtain your own electric service? What do you think you get electricity from air and it's free?
The new house owner is enjoying electricity on your dime with full knowledge.
Keep sending him invoices and then take it to a small claims court if you have to.
Simply file a small claims lawsuit, typically $35 or so. No need to get emotional. Just business.
After the guy signs up for electricity, it might even be possible to show the electric company the date the house changed hands and they can toss all the charges on to his bill after that date. It might be a little work for the electric company, but if you reached someone who cared, they might do that for you.
I'm betting that all of you posters that are on the OP's side are young and come from those generations where nothing is your fault, no grades in school, everybody gets a trophy ! It was a stupid mistake but the OP made it, not the buyer. Yes the buyer is a jerk too, probably from the same generation and laughing because he got away with something. Life is too mean to survive on your own, the "Village" has to help you ! Now I'll sit back and let the comments come !
Life in a village where everybody is ready to stick a knife in your back when you're not looking is all that is left for the generation that condones criminal behavior. Must be interesting.
I sold my house in March, paid what I thought was my last power bill, and moved away. Six months later I got a disconnect notice saying I owed several hundred dollars to them and they were going to send it to a collection agency. Looking into this, I found out that all the money was for new power usage at the old house I sold -- the new owner never opened an account with the power company so they just kept billing me (though I never saw a bill -- maybe a problem with the mail forwarding? I don't know).
The power company said I had to pay them and try to get my money back from the new owner. So I paid up, and told the new owner all about it, and the guy is being a real jerk (attacking me for not using a nice enough tone in my email, complaining that I wasn't nice enough to his girlfriend, my old tenant, because I wouldn't sell the house to her for way under market value, etc.). So collecting from this guy is going to be a real pain, even with a court judgment.
However, this guy and his girlfriend have a longstanding relationship with their real estate agent dating back at least 10 years. They both have rented and bought multiple properties through this guy, and I think they know each other fairly well. The realtor has a business relationship with the closing attorney who did the closing.
I think the realtor and closing attorney would be much easier to collect from, not because the new owner is broke, but because he is a real DC "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!" type of guy (he knows Hillary Clinton, so he doesn't have to pay his own power bills, apparently).
So, I need a theory for including the agent and closing attorney in a small claims suit to recover what I paid for this guy's electricity. The idea is to get one of them to bug this guy enough to get him to actually write a check and end this ridiculous saga.
So, aren't closing attorneys supposed to make some sort of provision to close out utility accounts like this? How does that work? And what about agents, shouldn't they at least remind their clients to put the utilities in their own names?
Ummmm, no. The electric bill is a personal matter and not attached to the home sale. Taxes are part of the deal but not utilities. Don't over complicate this anymore than you have and leave the realtor and attorney out it or it COULD get real ugly. If the new owner is not being civil take them to small claims court, I have a feeling you will win in a matter of minutes although I would be careful not to be too finger pointy because although your buyer is a sneaky snake, you allowed it to happen by not canceling the power.
Lawyers and real estate agents would not normally have the authority to close utility accounts (unless they have power of attorney documents on file with the utility). You normally have to be a property owner or resident at the property to change utilities. Many utilities now (especially water/sewer/garbage) won't even transfer account responsibility to renters that are living in the property; they will only deal with the property owner. It's pretty basic adult common sense knowledge that if you move, you are the sole person responsible for shutting off utilities.
This will probably turn out to be an expensive lesson in common sense for the OP.
Last edited by patches403; 12-01-2015 at 11:29 AM..
That's like saying if you live near the ocean it's your fault when your house gets washed away. It's not the OP's fault that someone criminally took advantage of him. He didn't close his account, but think of it this way: you're selling your house, there's a lot to think about and lots of loose ends to tie up. So he forgot a loose end, it doesn't absolve the criminal (the new owner who knows full well that he should have his own electric bill and willfully didn't open his own account) from his crime. He's the one who used the electricity. He's the criminal.
Umm, yes it IS the OPs fault. I'm not absolving the buyer of blame, because if I bought a house and noticed that a utility was in the seller's name, I would immediately contact them to have it changed over. However, if the OP had done what he was SUPPOSED to do and had the utilities taken out of his name, he wouldn't be dealing with this situation at all. This is what's wrong with people - they won't take responsibility for their actions and expect someone else to clean it up or make it right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LolaSonner
There's a difference between a guy not knowing something or forgetting (which is HONEST), and a guy knowingly using something he knows isn't his and sticking someone else to pay for his use. That's THEFT. One guy was honest and one was dishonest yet you go after the honest guy? I can only hope this happens to you and then you might see how the tables turn then.
So you think people should be punished because they are calling someone out for a really stupid mistake?
Consider the possibility that new owner did notify the electric company, but without a corresponding disconnect order, nothing was done. Of course, after a couple months of new owner NOT getting a bill, maybe they should have investigated further.
My MIL called to make some service changes on her cable TV and for some reason they quit sending her a bill alltogether. She didn't realize it for several months, but then again, she was in her 80s.
Anyone with a close alliance to Hillary Clinton is / must be a terrifying thing to have to deal with
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