Previously, warrant applications were subject to stringent review, but current guidance to the courts finds this requirement “disproportionate.”
Energy companies can ask for warrants if their invoices remain unpaid for an extended period.
This week, though, vendors were warned to stop forcibly installing meters.
Following a story from The Times that debt collectors had broken into the homes of vulnerable individuals. The energy regulator Ofgem warned energy providers not to install meters by force.
However, warrants are still being issued in recent times. Privately, industry voices are concerned that there is now a “charter for non-payers”. Because disconnecting customers and halting prepayment meters have been ruled out.
National Leadership Magistrate Duncan Webster revised magistrate instructions on an internal website last month.
Mr. Webster told magistrates in an internal FAQ post that “advice offered to courts has not kept pace with changes in the way utility corporations operate.” As the remedy sought by energy providers for delinquent bills is no longer disconnection, but the installation of a prepayment meter, “checks magistrates are now required to conduct are unreasonable and considerably beyond legal requirements.”
As the expense of living crisis intensified in 2022, magistrates issued almost 1,000 warrants every day. Most energy providers’ magistrate courts approve these claims electronically or by phone.
Forcefit prepayment meters
Agents of energy companies apply via telephone and submit enormous files including between 100 and 1,000 cases in which customers are informed they have the opportunity to dispute the warrant, but few do so. Pilot results show that hearings will approve, issue, and transmit all electronic warrants in “a maximum of 15 minutes.”
According to legal experts, the guidance demonstrates that magistrates no longer protect vulnerable individuals and instead take the word of large energy companies “in good faith.”
There are calls for the nearly automatic method of warrant approval to be revised. Chairwoman of the government’s Committee on Fuel Poverty, Caroline Flint, stated that the situation was worsening for already fuel-poor households.
The committee stated that no energy company activity should make it more difficult for anyone to heat their home and that the system requires a total revamp.
The arrangement provides the court system with a case-by-case fee, a crucial source of revenue following a decade in which the judicial system’s financing has been drastically reduced.
One magistrate and former Justice of the Peace resigned in August after being unable to verify the protection of vulnerable individuals when a warrant for a prepayment meter was requested.
Robin Cantrill-Fenwick stated that due to changes in the court system, magistrates “merely rubber stamp” warrants.
He stated that the lack of oversight puts vulnerable households at risk.
The current advice, according to government authorities, is a matter for the judiciary. According to a judicial source, the document just describes the applicable laws and procedures that magistrates must follow.
In response to public criticism over the forced installation of pay-as-you-go meters. Scotland’s court administration has stated that it will reassess the utility warrants process.
A request for comment was made to the Magistrates’ Leadership Executive.
