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My partner and I have recently moved into our new home and as expected have received a number of letters from companies for the previous occupants.

This latest "Letter" (I say letter but It was a crumpled piece of paper without an envelope) was addressed to "New Tenn" and asking for payment of £1188 for their services.

After a quick Google the company operates a cleaning services business which haven't been responsive to any of my attempts to call them.

Overlooking the suspicious and highly unprofessional invoice received my question is can a company charge you for services never requested or received?

I always thought that debt followed an individual and not a property.

Update: I am the owner of the property.

Karm
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4 Answers4

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In general, you can only be charged for services if there is some kind of contract. The contract doesn't have to be written, but you have to have agreed to it somehow.

However, it is possible that you entered into a contract due to some clause in the home purchase contract or the contract with the home owners' association. There are also sometimes services you are legally required to get, such as regular inspection of heating furnaces (though I don't think this translates to automatic contracts).

But in any case you would not be liable for services rendered before you entered into the contract, which sounds like it's the case here.

Michael Borgwardt
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No. A company cannot bill you for services you did not request nor receive. If they could, imagine how many people would just randomly get bills in their mail.

Ignore them. They don't have a contract or agreement with you and can't do anything other than make noise. If they get aggressive or don't stop requesting money, hire an attorney and it will be taken care of.

BobbyScon
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I have had a couple of businesses do this to me. I simply ask them to come over to talk about the bill. Sometimes this ends it. If they come over then I call the cops to file a report on fraud. A lot of times the police will do nothing unless they have had a load of complaints but it certainly gets the company off your back.

And if they are truly unscrupulous it doesn't hurt to get a picture of them talking with the police and their van, and then post the whole situation online - you will see others come forward really quick after doing something like this.

blankip
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Here's another example of such a practice and the problem it caused. My brother, who lived alone, was missing from work for several days so a co-worker went to his home to search for him and called the local Sheriff's Office for assistance. The local fire department which runs the EMS ambulance was also dispatched in the event there was a medical emergency. They discovered my brother had passed away inside his home and had obviously been dead for days. As our family worked on probate matters to settle his estate following this death, it was learned that the local fire department had levied a bill against my brother's estate for $800 for responding with their ambulance to his home that day. I tried to talk to their commander about this, insisting my brother had not called them, nor had they transported him or even checked his pulse. The commander insisted theirs was common practice - that someone was always billed for their medical response. He would not withdraw his bill for "services". I hate to say, but the family paid the bill in order to prevent delay of his probate issues and from receiving monies that paid for his final expenses.

Jerry Worrell
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