Electricity supply from next door

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I own an old, stone built, terraced property in North Northumberland. I recently suffered a lot of power cuts and to keep a long story short, it turns out that my electricity supply comes from next door. The main power cable enters his house at the back, feeds into his consumer unit then exits there and feeds into my house and into my consumer unit. My neighbour therefore has one switch to control his electricity and one to control both properties.

Unknown to him, he had been turning both off when carrying out work on his property.

I have contacted the supplier and they in turn are arranging to have Balfour Beatty assess the situation.

I was wondering if anyone knows what my rights are in this situation as the supplier stated that I would have to pay for this mess to be sorted out. It was obviously some cost cutting exercise that led to this in the first place.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder whether your house was once owned and rented out by the owner of next door? Maybe he/she liked to have control of how much electricity his/her tenant used.

However, if your power is actually switched on and off at next door's consumer unit, that must mean that it's being monitored by their meter. Could it also mean that they're paying for it?!

Are you sure the incoming supply doesn't split before the meter - maybe at the supplier's fuse?

It all sounds very dodgy, and possibly illegal (someone more expert that me will hopefully confirm or deny that).

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, I am no expert(!) but in our old mid terrace house, we found out that our gas supply came in through our house and then went next door from where our meter was situated under our stairs. Thankfully separately metered next door. this was the case for all the terraces (in pairs). As next door was being renovated, they paid for their supply to be supplied directly to their house as it was then that this situation was discovered. It does appear that the homeowner had to pay to change the situation unless there was a fault. This is not illegal, but someything that was done a long time ago along the lines of the 'party line' that you used to get with your phone.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the swift responses.

I've spoken to Northern Electric Distribution again tonight and they say that the job might cost nothing or it may be several hundred pounds, depending on the work that's required. They also said that there's no possibility that I can claim that back off them as its my decision to have the wiring changed, and it works perfectly well as it is.

The real problem is that my new neighbour has bought the property as a holiday home and will be hundreds of miles away for months at a time. If there's a problem next door I'm literally in the dark.

I am metered seperately from my neighbour and it does seem to have been just some cheap option for the old electricity board in the past. It just seems really bad form that I've got to pay to put right their shoddy efforts.

In light of sarahj's reply I'd better go and check my gas supply now!

Thanks for your help.

 

[Anonymous]

Did this not come up in the survey of the house or in the solicitors request for information from the vendors re electricity supply????
Maybe you should be asking questions there as well?

 

[Anonymous]

Don't like to alarm you, but when the house we bought used to be a holiday cottage, it was a condition of the owner's insurance that the electricity was turned off when it was unoccupied!

 

[Anonymous]

Yes that's a very good point. I'll get some letters sent off as soon as the contractors have been to assess exactly what needs to be done. It was purely by chance that I found out in the first place and I'm sure someone, somewhere should have spotted this earlier.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks sarahj, that's something else to add into the melting pot! This is turning into a nightmare!

 

[Anonymous]

It is still quite common to find shared and individually metered supply of electricity, water and gas,
Telephone had shared lines until the sixties.

There is nothing illegal about shared service supply as long as everybody has a meter.

What (in my opinion), is totally incorrect is for you share user to be in control of " YOUR" supply.

I hope you will keep in good terms with you neighbour...!!!

Tell the electricity board to get their A**e in gear and by-pass the isolator from next door so only you and them have control over it.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with Middi, so what if your power comes through the neighbours house, their problem not yours. They should not be able to turn your supply on and off if its seperate to theirs and that means either they are doing something illegal or the boards wiring is not up to standard as I see it.

 

[Anonymous]

They'd probably pulled out the supplier's fuse to replace the fuse box/consumer unit. If they've now got a modern consumer unit installed they should be able to isolate their supply without switching yours off. My only concern would be that your earth connection probably goes through their premises & could be disconnected without giving any indication of a fault. I am not an electrician.

 

[Anonymous]

If it's any use, I had a similar situation in my previous house in Cumbria. The supply ran through the middle of my kitchen ceiling into my neighbour's house and their meter. The electricity company were very cagey on the phone but when the contractors turned up to assess the problem they just arranged for the supply to be re-routed at no charge to me. They said that many houses used to have this but it was no longer 'acceptable'. They did all the work including digging up the neighbours garden and patio and the road outside. I was delighted, my neighbours were not!

Hope it works out nicely for you too

 

[Anonymous]

Is a few hundred quid really a nightmare?

NT

 

[Anonymous]

Yo your neighbour can turn off the electricity "upstream" of the meters??? Seems like anything "upstream" of the meter is:-

a. The electricity distribution company's responsibility.
b. An easy way to "nick" electricity...

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