Being chased for unauthorised works ten months later!

[Puflet]

Hi! First time poster here!

Briefly, I've been letting out my property since October 2011, with an agent on a full management basis. They gave me a list of things which needed to be supplied, e.g. Gas Safety Certificate, EPC, all the rest. Where I could get these done more cheaply than the costs that they were offering, I did. I hired my own gasfitter to do the gas safety check, I supplied them with the certificate last September, they sorted out tenants and I didn't give it a second thought.

Then today I received an invoice dated September 2011 with an angry letter from a heating company I've never heard of, saying that they'd been hired to do the gas safety check by my agents, that they'd been chasing the agents to no avail and that they had now been advised to chase me direct as they no longer manage the property. (After the initial tenancy agreement, a central office handles all the day-to-day management and I guess this is what they were referring to)

I am not at all happy about my current address being passed on without my permission. I responded via email to the heating company to the effect that I'd hired my own gasfitter to do the check, that they should not have been instructed to access the property and that I was contacting the managing agent for documentary proof that the work had been carried out by someone else. I've also emailed my contacts at both the office which handles the marketing of the property and initial tenancy agreement, and the one which handles the day to day stuff, asking for a copy of the gas safety certificate which I assume also carries out the name of the company which carried it out.

All the costs I'd actually incurred via the agent - e.g. inventory fees - had been deducted from the first month's rent in October 2011 and it seems very strange that if they'd carried out the work and invoiced, that it wouldn't have been included in the deductions. I'd have queried it at the time, of course, given that I'd instructed someone else.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

[Carryon Regardless]

If I got an invoice for works authorised by 'an other' it would be ignored(ish).

The only attention would be to attempt to prevent unnecessary effort in defending a claim.

Did you provide an order / request for the works ?

Without evidence you instructed such works then who should pay is their problem, end of.

[DanTurner]

Did your plumber hire this company to do the work instead of doing it himself?

[Mortitia]

Puflet - ask invoicer for proof of instruction plus proof that they attended and worked on the property in supplying a gas safety certificate.

Also ask why invoicer what 'advisor' has told them to contact you.

Mortitia

[Melboy]

First......You never received a copy of the gas certificate neither did the LA I presume.

Second.....The LA made no deduction for gas certificate work carried out or invoiced you for payment.

Third......The Gas company were working as a direct sub contractor to the LA and the LA is your managing agent and it is the LA's responsibility to clear this up......not you.

Write a letter to the Gas Company and copy the LA outlining the reasons why you accept no responsibilty for this invoice and that they should seek payment form whoever authorised this work to go ahead without your permission.