Number of households seeking help over energy debt legal action doubles
Suppliers increasingly opting to take customer to court to recover unpaid bills, Citizens Advice says
The number of households seeking help to deal with court action over their unpaid energy bills has doubled in the last year, according to Citizens Advice.
The charity said suppliers were increasingly opting to take their customers to court to recover their energy debts, which could ruin household finances for years.
It said the use of legal action to pursue unpaid bills appeared to have increased since the industry regulator, Ofgem, introduced strict restrictions on the forced installation of prepayment meters.
Citizens Advice offered advice to 349 households who received a CCJ over unpaid gas and electricity bills last year, up from 179 in 2022,as energy debts reached a record high of £3.1bn.
The number of CCJs are the highest the charity has recorded since 2019 and are understood to represent a fraction of the total number of judgments issued to recover energy debts.
Ofgem’s energy price cap, which fixes the maximum rate for energy bills, fell by £238 on Monday to £1,690 a year for the typical annual dual fuel bill. Data from the regulator showed energy debt continued to rise by £2.8m a day in the second half of last year, meaning many are still struggling to pay their bills.
Madison Stefanuik, a caseworker at Citizens Advice, said: “People are coming to us about this problem more and more often. It’s usually people who are struggling to make ends meet, often trying to prioritise rent and council tax. As a result, they’ve fallen behind on energy bills and have been hit with a CCJ.”
