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What is the legal position with EDF?


Frederic
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In October 2004 we bought a goat farm in the South of France as an ‘on-going’ concern. We signed a contract with EDF pro to supply electricity to the farm because the previous owner had used this facility. Our contract states that we will get an itemized bill every two months and with our standing order at the bank the bill will be automatically paid on the correct date.

Everything appeared to go well during the first few months and with 250 goats to look after we soon forgot about EDF, safe in the knowledge that the regular bills would warn us of any problems and the automatic payment from our bank would prevent any worries.

We were therefore stunned to get a single envelope from EDF in April 2006 containing six bills, all with the same date in April 2006, and totaling almost 4,000 Euro’s. We called EDF but got nowhere because they insisted that this was just the state of our account at that time.

We called the previous owner of the exploitation who informed us that EDF’s charges are more than twice what he paid for the same period in the preceding year.

Our counselor from the MSA (Agricultural Social Security) called EDF and managed to discover the following. In April 2005, EDF noted an excessive increase in demand for electricity at our farm and consequently suspended our account. In effect, this meant they stopped sending bills and stopped taking automatic payments from our bank account, until April 2006 when they decided to accumulated the outstanding bills and demand immediate payment. They did not feel the need to tell us of the problem!

Our MSA counselor got EDF to agree a meeting at the farm to discuss the problem and in the interim we were advised to cancel our standing order.

EDF never arrived and we were to make two further meetings at which they failed to arrive.

Looking back to April 2005, we remembered a very heavy fall of snow that brought down the power lines and cut electricity to the farm for four days – could this be the source of the excessive consumption? EDF listened to our explanation and agreed to send a technician to check our meter and get a new reading. The week before the technician was due to arrive we received two notifications from EDF stating that short interruptions of power would be experienced since they were updating the lines and equipment supplying our farm to improve the quality of service. The technician arrived the following week and reported that everything was working correctly.

We again spoke to EDF asking to pay the outstanding amount by installment but got a letter back stating that they would only accept a minimum of 511 Euro’s per month plus 150 Euro’s interest. We would also need to make sure that we were up to date with our current electricity charges.

We paid the first 511 Euro’s but wrote to EDF stating that the repayment schedule was to high and that our farm could not sustain such excessive payments. We explained that by its actions, EDF had concealed from us the existence of the problem and by refusing to provide bills or to take payments at the time they were due, EDF had actually created this problem.

We sent a copy of this letter, recorded delivery, to the head office of EDF in Paris and got a response promising an enquiry. The response letter had a name and signature but did not contain any reference numbers.

We next got a letter from EDF stating that they were going to cut the power to our farm because we had not made our second payment of 511 Euro’s. Our MSA counselor then suggested that we contact the Consumers Association who would speak to EDF on our behalf. The Consumer Association spoke to EDF, got them to suspend the disconnection and to agree to a meeting at our farm to discuss the matter. EDF never arrived for the meeting.

The Consumer Association then wrote to EDF to help find a solution to the problem but EDF subsequently refused to acknowledge the existence of this letter. The Consumer Association again spoke to EDF to demand an explanation but were told that our dossier did not exist and they could not speak to anyone in authority.

The Consumer Association have now said that whilst EDF refuses to acknowledge our dossier, there is nothing more they can do. They recommend contacting the deputy mayor of a large town near to us, and under whose influence the area appears to be.

Whilst preparing a letter for the Deputy Mayor, we received a telephone call from EDF stating that if we do not make all our outstanding payments of 511 Euro’s they will disconnect our farm next week. They are now saying that they have no record of our letter to their Paris office (despite that fact that we have the recorded delivery slip) or of the response promising an enquiry. They also say that no meetings could have been arranged at our farm because EDF only discuss problems of this type over the phone. As a final blow, EDF informed us that due to our excessive consumption, they are going to triple our connection charges adding a further 300 Euro’s to our account.

We gave a letter to the Deputy Mayor’s secretary last Thursday but were told that he is a very busy man with many urgent problems to deal with, however, he may be able to meet with us next week.

I would also like to add that we are completely up to date with our current EDF payments and that since the line has been improved to the farm, our actual consumption appears to have fallen below that used by the previous owner.

So what can we do? What is the legal position with EDF? Who can we contact to help deal with EDF.

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Hi Tony

Thanks for responding.

You have to remember that an Advocat does not come free. There is a balance between the costs involved, i.e., the cost of legal representation versus the amount being demanded by EDF.

Everyone we have spoken to has some story to tell about EDF, so the question here is - has anyone come accross a similar situation and does anyone know who EDF is responsable to?

Do you know if its possible to take legal action against EDF?

Thanks

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Fred,

 Are the E.D.F asking you to pay for units that you have not used...?

Why is it that a simple meter reading does not iron out this issue....?

They can only charge you for what you have used...right..?

 I shall read your post again to see if I have grasped that facts correctly as the obvious answer seems to simple to be confusing...

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Hi Ty

Thanks for responding. The key issue is that we signed a contract with EDF in which they must provide an itemized statement every two months and take payment from our bank account on the day the invoice is due.

EDF claim to have identified excessive consumption at our farm over a year ago and as a consequence have not sent invoices or taken any payment for over a year. They did not inform us of what they were doing but did continue to provide electricity. If we had not had so much work on our hands trying to run the goat farm we would have picked up on this much earlier.

After a year of this excessive consumption, EDF decided to send all the accumulated invoices at the same time and to demand immediate payment.

After a lot of telephone calls and letters, EDF agreed to send a technician to check our meter and get a reading – but only after EDF had completed updates to the line and equipment.

Since EDF have updated the line and equipment we do not know if the original readings were correct or not – we do know that since the work our consumption has fallen to a more normal level.

EDF now wants us to pay 511 euro’s per month, plus interest, which is to heavy for our farm, or they will cut the power.

By not providing invoices etc., EDF has broken its own contract; by not informing us of the sudden and continued appearance of excessive consumption EDF should bear some responsibility for the cost; and by updating the line and equipment before a meter check could be done EDF has ensured that we can never prove that an electrical fault was responsible for the high consumption and not our farm.

Despite all this, we have only asked EDF for a reasonable repayment schedule.

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I know it sounds a bit obvious which might mean you have already done it but have you visited your local EDF Office in person. Listed in Yellow Pages as EDF Services Clientele. We have always found them very helpful as opposed to the technicians office.
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I'm rather suprised that you did not notice for 12 months that the money was not being taken. That aside, the best advice is that which you have already been given; visit EDF in person (has always worked for me), but should that fail, see an Avocat. Or pay up!

As regards your legal position, you really do need an Avocat, by my take is that you are due to pay for electricity you have consumed. The fact that EDF did not take the money when it should have, simply means that you got a period of grace and cannot affect the fact that payment is now overdue.

Sorry if that is not what you wanted to hear.

 

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<< The Consumer Association have now said that whilst EDF refuses to acknowledge our dossier, there is nothing more they can do. They recommend contacting the deputy mayor of a large town near to us, and under whose influence the area appears to be. >>

If the recommendation is in writing and your French is anything like good enough get the local paper on side and then go and see the deputy mayor's secretary saying how useless the French CA are and that he or she is your last resort     

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Hi Nick Trollope.

Thanks for responding.

I think your second paragraph explains EDF’s position exactly.

But let me ask you, if your next bill from EDF was 4,000 Euro’s would you pay up or would you give EDF a call and ask for an explanation. And if you asked EDF for an explanation and they told you that a year ago they identified excessive consumption at you house, had now added all these excessive consumption charges together, and wanted immediate payment would you pay them?

In such circumstances, may I assume that you would check you house for any possible explanation for this excessive power consumption, and if you failed to identify one would you ask EDF to send a technician to check their system? ….. and if a large EDF technical services van arrived to update all your EDF supply equipment a week before the technician arrived to confirm your EDF supply and metering were working perfectly would you feel satisfied?

So now EDF knock on you door and say "well Nick, you know you used all this electricity so hand over a cheque for 4,000 Euro’s or we cut the power".

What are you going to do?

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I don't know how much electricity a goat farm uses, but for a typical house, electrically heated, one could easily expect to pay 1500 Euros, with the majority of this in the winter.

So with two winters in your disputed account, perhaps 4000 isn't all that high. I suppose that the lower consumption you are currently enjoying may be due to seasonal variations.

Its always annoying to have to pay out a large lump sum, but if things aren't going your way  when you discuss things with the mediator, offer to pay  a reasonable amount upfront, say 3000 Euros  to cover the normal consumption , (this could be paid from the reserve you will have built up over the last year), spreading the remainder over , say,a two year period. Otherwise with no juice I imagine you will be immediately out of business.

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[quote user="Frederic"]

In April 2005, EDF noted an excessive increase in demand for electricity at our farm and consequently suspended our account. In effect, this meant they stopped sending bills and stopped taking automatic payments from our bank account, until April 2006 when they decided to accumulated the outstanding bills and demand immediate payment.

[/quote]

When I read this, I was puzzled as to why EDF would decide to stop charging you for their electricity for a year.  Then you say:

[quote user="Frederic"]

But let me ask you, if your next bill from EDF was 4,000 Euro’s would you pay up or would you give EDF a call and ask for an explanation. And if you asked EDF for an explanation and they told you that a year ago they identified excessive consumption at you house, had now added all these excessive consumption charges together, and wanted immediate payment would you pay them?

[/quote]

Are you now saying that they've been charging you for your regular supply all along and this is just the billing for the excess.....?  Is this not just the normal end of year adjustment between budgetted and actual supply costs?

[8-)]

 

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Frederick - I do feel sad for you that you have to pay a bill of 4,000 euros for electricity that you had mistakenly thought was taken care of until EDF informed you that it had suspended payments because of abnormal use of electricity.  However, I think you will just have to put it down to an unfortunate experience and part of getting used to living in a new country and climate etc. - and not checking your bank account to see that the electricity was being deducted regularly is all part of that initial settling in process where things that you would probably have thought to do in UK just went out of the window in the haze and hurly-burly of settling-in.  Clearly EDF have made a fault by not informing you that it suspended you payments, and then waiting many months before presenting you with a bill but I doubt that will alter the fact that you owe them the money and should pay asap just to get on with your life again. (Hope you kept a reserve for unforseen circumstances arising when setting up an enterprise in France!)

However, electricity here can be v v expensive during the winter, especially old models of heating (we have just arranged to have new electric convector heaters put in and I believe (hope) that they are much more efficient.  I would not take any notice of the previous owner saying that his electricity bills were half that cost as you have no idea whether he was really using electricity as his main source of heating.  All the French homes we have visited seem to use the efficient paraffin heaters as a mainstay of background heating throughout the winter, plus log burners, and just use electricity/gas/oil central heating systems to increase levels of heat at particularly cold patches or for part of the day.  Indeed, we do exactly the same.  You have no way of knowing whether the previous owner relied mainly on paraffin heaters (even for keeping the goats quarters warm if it is feasible to place them safely in a secure area in there). Indeed, the cost of heating and therefore general running costs may be one of the reasons he was selling up and he's certainly not going to admit that to you when you ring him to discuss current problem.

EDFGDF is a law unto itself.  We have been paying bills here for 7 years and about 3 months ago they suddenly made a payment of 650 euros into our bank account!  We have had no correspondence to explain why and they definitely do not owe us any money for electricity consumed, everything is completely up to date.  Whilst not complaining we are mystified!

 

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Hello Sunday Driver

I don’t know why EDF stopped charging for a year and they won’t tell.

In response to Nick Trollope, I was just trying to set a scenario that had nothing to do with goat farms but simply what EDF could do to a normal householder. I’m sorry if this confused the issue.

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Hello Jhc

I hear what you say but at the moment we are very angry with our treatment by EDF and determined to at least try and do something. The previous owner did provide certified accounts before we bought the farm to prove that it was viable.

The goat farm does not use heating but does have a milking machine and refrigeration on a large milk storage tank – the latter probably uses less electricity in the winter whilst the former should be about the same. Lighting can be more expensive in the darker winter but we use 38watt neon strip lights throughout. This is all the same as the previous owner.

We believe that EDF have behaved badly and probably illegally and we are not ready to give in just yet. During our four years in France we have discovered that large organisations such as EDF have no respect for anyone who will not standup for themselves – and it doesn’t matter if your English, French, German, …… In dealing with these organisations you really need to know who they are responsible to. The advice we received from the Forum concerning the Mediator has been invaluable, so we will see what happens now!!

Since corresponding with the Forum, we have decided to make two interim payments to EDF’s excessive schedule (which may help the mediation process and stop any power cut), and we have heard from the Deputy Mayor we wrote to and have a meeting for the end of the month (the earliest he can arrange, but he does seem to be on our side)

So many thanks to everyone for your advice – we will post any news.

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