# Previous Owner Owed Gas Bill. Am I on the Hook?



## WintheWin (Jul 15, 2015)

Howdy Folks,

I've been lurking these last couple of months, but lately I've stumbled into a situation where I require some insight.

So...
Some stuff works weird here, and I just can't understand why this situation is SO complicated.

I've been using Gas Canisters for my boiler/stove.

They just don't seem to last very long, and seeing as my home has access to the natural gas pipelines, I figured, "Hey? Why not hook that sucker up?"

So, I call the NG people, the only company that does this in the city, and they tell me that they can make me a contract, but first I need to clear my debt.

My debt? This house was purchased about a year ago, and it was pretty much abandoned for three years before that... what debt?

So, apparently, the previous owners racked up around 4,000 pesos in debt.

How? 

I mean, how can you spend so much in gas? These homes don't have heating or anything, it pretty much boils down to the stove and the boiler....

Apparently, the gas company let them do "convenios" because they couldn't make their payments.

Because... that makes sense... somehow. "Can't pay your debt? Don't worry, make a minimum payment, I mean, if you can't pay 200 pesos, you can probably pay us the 4,000 you owe us."

They're taking this through upper management, seeing if they can "offer" me a discount.
This seems absurd. I didn't sign the contract that the previous owner is liable for. If they want their money, they can pursue to person who signed the contract, it seems fair. That's how it's worked with every service company I've ever heard of (state-side of course.)

Part of me, wants to believe this is a form of "chantaje" to get me to pay up the previous debtor's bill. Is this allowed? Can I get suckered into this? Can I bring this up to profeco? I don't see why I have to pay ANY money that was owed by a previous tenant, much less 4,000 pesos. God. 

Any advice would be much appreciated!


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## joaquinx (Jul 3, 2010)

Since we don't have gas lines here in Veracruz, I can't offer help with the gas, but with electricity I can. CFE holds the property responsible for the debt thus the owner. If the gas contract is similar, the property owes the money and the debt must be paid off in order for gas to be reconnected to the property.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

It is common for anyone wanting service to pay the previous person´s debt off to resume service no matter how it was accrued as far as I understand it. 

Landlords will wait until all the bills come in. Example: CFE bills come every 2 months, and calculate the payments before returning a deposit. It can take weeks or months to get a deposit returned with the bills deducted. This is the way it is.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Buy a stationary tank and call the gas company every 6 months

We had a short term rental right after a low life ****** moved out and a few weeks later we got the electric bill. It was 6000 pesos and the owner and manager had to eat it. Place had to sit vacant for a year to get the billing out of the highest rate.


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## TJGUY (Jan 5, 2016)

WintheWin said:


> Howdy Folks,
> 
> I've been lurking these last couple of months, but lately I've stumbled into a situation where I require some insight.
> 
> ...


As much as this sucks that is how it is. I would work with them to see if they will reduce the bill or create a new contract. You could go to Profeco and see if they can help. Also look at your bill and see if they are charging you for actual consumption or are you being charged for a min use fee. I have piped in gas and if I don't use it there is a min fee. If the place was empty for a while and nobody terminated the contract that bill would continue to climb.

Now 4,000 pesos is a lot of money. You could see how much a plumber would charge you to sever the connection and set you up on large gas tank and then you would at least circumvent the injustice of it all.
Good luck.


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## coondawg (May 1, 2014)

I believe that you can get a 300 liter stationary tank bought and installed for about 1,500 pesos. I would be very concerned that you may have a leak/s somewhere, as it sounds like you use a LOT of gas. One of those cylinders should last about 6 weeks with high use. If not, you have problems. Maybe the 4000p came about because of leaks. If you want the direct connect, they have you by the gonads. Good luck.


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## TJGUY (Jan 5, 2016)

coondawg said:


> I believe that you can get a 300 liter stationary tank bought and installed for about 1,500 pesos. I would be very concerned that you may have a leak/s somewhere, as it sounds like you use a LOT of gas. One of those cylinders should last about 6 weeks with high use. If not, you have problems. Maybe the 4000p came about because of leaks. If you want the direct connect, they have you by the gonads. Good luck.


This would be the way to go.Then you only pay for what you use and not be at the mercy of the Gas company.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

You might as well pay up and get new service in your name. Eventually, the property will pay the bill if the gas company places a lien before you sell the place. 
The previous comments are correct: The debt pertains to the property, not the individual owner.


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

Whether on a bottle or a tap it makes good sense to cut off the gas to your water heater when not in use. I light ours daily, we shower and I turn it off. There is still hot water in the tank to wash dishes. It makes absolutely no sense for your water heater to kick on, burning fuel in the middle of the night for nothing.


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## WintheWin (Jul 15, 2015)

the 300L tank seems like a marvelous idea!

I don't want to have it on all day, but it'd be nice to have warm water during the day, without going out and having to turn on the boiler when I want to wash my hands. 

The gas company is supposed to call me tomorrow, let's see what their offer is.
4000 pesos is out of the question, that's 7 gas cylinders!... and 4,000 pesos of gas I didn't consume!

Unless they cancel out like... 95% of that debt, I'm telling them to rip the stick out of the ground, and I'll go for the 300L cylinders.

My grandma gets about 100 pesos of gas a week, that's what I want to have. As of now, I'm spending about 300? My cylinder tank costs about 600+ to fill, and it lasts me about two months.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Something else you might want to think about.

Install a solar hot water system. The upfront cost is larger by far, but you have hot water all day without having to turn the boiler off and on or feel like you have to save on gas. 

I only use gas for the stove. I do a lot of cooking including using the oven several times a week and the cylinders still last me for 5 months.

For me, it is not really a financial savings, as it will take a long time for the savings in gas to repay the installation cost. But it was a big improvement in quality of life. I wash dishes in hot water, shower when I want to without having to turn the boiler on, and generally have hot water available all the time. There is more than enough sun for hot water all year round. I have a backup boiler that I have only used a few times in the six years since I installed the solar system.


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## sunnyvmx (Mar 14, 2010)

I have just moved into a new rental. I took a photo of the electric meter the day I moved in as requested and went to the CFE office to start service in my name. Here in Chapala they add a deposit to your first monthly electric bill which will approximately cover the last bill when you move out. The last tenant left owing 174 pesos and her deposit was for 141 pesos. My deposit will be for 184 pesos. Maybe my higher deposit is covering the difference. Who knows. I doubt if CFE will eat anything and my new landlord is a lawyer. Judging by the lease that I signed, he's certainly got his bases covered and my security deposit too. Hopefully 30 years from now they will take me out of here on a stretcher covered with a sheet and I won't care about it.


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

sunnyvmx said:


> I have just moved into a new rental. I took a photo of the electric meter the day I moved in as requested and went to the CFE office to start service in my name. Here in Chapala they add a deposit to your first monthly electric bill which will approximately cover the last bill when you move out. The last tenant left owing 174 pesos and her deposit was for 141 pesos. My deposit will be for 184 pesos. Maybe my higher deposit is covering the difference. Who knows. I doubt if CFE will eat anything and my new landlord is a lawyer. Judging by the lease that I signed, he's certainly got his bases covered and my security deposit too. Hopefully 30 years from now they will take me out of here on a stretcher covered with a sheet and I won't care about it.


On the day we moved out of our rental - we took a photo of the meter - but we also included the front page of the newspaper in the photo as proof of authenticity.


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

The deposit for CFE was 5,000 pesos here. But this was new construction so they had to come stab a meter and may have charged for that as well
But I was told it was the deposit.


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## sunnyvmx (Mar 14, 2010)

Wow, that's a lot. I wondered if they went by the usual usage on the property. Here the houses don't have air conditioning or heating and this one has no pool. My usual 2 month billing averages 150 pesos. Is that amount of deposit mandatory for everyone? Possibly the previous tenant was in DAC?


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

sunnyvmx said:


> Wow, that's a lot. I wondered if they went by the usual usage on the property. Here the houses don't have air conditioning or heating and this one has no pool. My usual 2 month billing averages 150 pesos. Is that amount of deposit mandatory for everyone? Possibly the previous tenant was in DAC?


The guy who connected our electricity assumed we would use a lot as did our contractor. He said it got very hot here so he installed 3 AC's which we don't use. He also put in our own transformer to pull those AC's which was supposed to give us a better rate. Still my bill for one month was 500 pesos. I should only be billed once every 2 months but we have been billed monthly since November.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

Andreas_Montoya said:


> The guy who connected our electricity assumed we would use a lot as did our contractor. He said it got very hot here so he installed 3 AC's which we don't use. He also put in our own transformer to pull those AC's which was supposed to give us a better rate. Still my bill for one month was 500 pesos. I should only be billed once every 2 months but we have been billed monthly since November.


Installing your own transformer does give you a totally different reduced rate. It does not follow the DAC consumption equation. Most businesses and commercial properties do this that comsume high levels of KWHs. I think it is a good idea. If your $500 peso per month bill is compared to a 2 month $1000 peso per month bill without their own transformer, depending which climate zone you are in, I bet your rate is about 50% lower because you are not dealing with being in the DAC rate part of the year.


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

They assumed that because I was an American that I would want 3 AC's blowing all day. My wife is Mexican so I have become acclimated to the heat. They also put electric sockets all along the edge of the roof as "Americans like Christmas lights" which I also don't use.
They installed 3 huge security lights which I unscrewed. We have the TV on pretty much all day and 1 light. Other than the washing machine we have 2 small security lights at the gate that come on at night. I don't understand why 1, I got a bill in one month and 2, why it was 500 pesos when I own the transformer.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

AlanMexicali said:


> Installing your own transformer does give you a totally different reduced rate. It does not follow the DAC consumption equation. Most businesses and commercial properties do this that comsume high levels of KWHs. I think it is a good idea. If your $500 peso per month bill is compared to a 2 month $1000 peso per month bill without their own transformer, depending which climate zone you are in, I bet your rate is about 50% lower because you are not dealing with being in the DAC rate part of the year.


Is the self-owned transformer a good idea if you don't consume a lot of electricity? Is there a minimum monthly fee associated with it? Maybe that is why the OP is getting a $500 mxn bill every month.


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

I never heard of self-owned transformers before this thread. But since all our utilities are in the ground I doubt that would be an option. I'll assume everyone here is already familiar with the DAC and the regional pricing 'bands'. We are in the least tolerant. When we bought the place we lucked out because the previous owners didn't spend much time here and we therefore 'inherited' their low usage. But over time we saw where we were headed and installed a 10 panel PV system. It is hanging off the back wall of the property (high above some farmland). Since installation we run 26 pesos/month (with pool) and we have a sizable kwh credit balance. System should pay for itself in about 8 years - maybe sooner if rates go up.


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

TundraGreen said:


> Is the self-owned transformer a good idea if you don't consume a lot of electricity? Is there a minimum monthly fee associated with it? Maybe that is why the OP is getting a $500 mxn bill every month.


There is a discount that shows on the bill. I can't imagine 2 small bulbs for security at the gate making it that high.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

We have a stationary tank _and_ a set of tankless heaters (_calentadores de paso_ in Spanish). Those only turn on when someone opens the hot water tap. As the name suggests, there’s no hot water tank; the water is simply heated on demand at one point in the heater. It saves more water if you have several small such heaters, each one installed very close to the point of use. (We made the mistake of having two large ones installed far from the bathrooms, so we have to run a lot of water before the hot water reaches the tap.)


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## coondawg (May 1, 2014)

WE have only one, but it uses so little gas compared to the tank type. We really like it, but the one works for our 3 bathroom house, so takes a little while.


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

We noticed absolutely NO savings when we replaced our tank with a tankless water heater. I like the way it looks and all but that is about it.


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## coondawg (May 1, 2014)

chuck846 said:


> We noticed absolutely NO savings when we replaced our tank with a tankless water heater. I like the way it looks and all but that is about it.


Then you have some problem with it, or a leak, because they definitely use a LOT less gas.


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

coondawg said:


> Then you have some problem with it, or a leak, because they definitely use a LOT less gas.


We read that in the literature - and we have had the system checked. We spend between 300-450 pesos/month on gas (two baths). But we have a gas stove as well. The oven is electric. I _think_ the cost of nat gas is fixed country wide ?


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

TJGUY said:


> This would be the way to go.Then you only pay for what you use and not be at the mercy of the Gas company.


It will not be 1,500 pesos for a 300 lt tank, those are at least 3800 pesos, just the tank, then, installation materials and labor
It does not sound to me like unfair, or "to be at the mercy of the gas company"
You were not careful enough to check if that house owed electric bills, gas, predial, etc. Get over it, pay the bill and learn the lesson


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

Andreas_Montoya said:


> Whether on a bottle or a tap it makes good sense to cut off the gas to your water heater when not in use. I light ours daily, we shower and I turn it off. There is still hot water in the tank to wash dishes. It makes absolutely no sense for your water heater to kick on, burning fuel in the middle of the night for nothing.


You may get an boiler " de paso" which works only when hot water is needed. And forget about closing and opening valves


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

chuck846 said:


> On the day we moved out of our rental - we took a photo of the meter - but we also included the front page of the newspaper in the photo as proof of authenticity.


Did you really really do that?


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

GARYJ65 said:


> Did you really really do that?


Yes as a matter of fact - at the request of the girl at CFE. Our Mexican landlord was living in the US. We paid the utilities but they remained in the owner's name. We asked CFE to compute a bill for the usage up until our moving. It also made the realtor who was acting as rental agent a little more at ease.


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

chuck846 said:


> We read that in the literature - and we have had the system checked. We spend between 300-450 pesos/month on gas (two baths). But we have a gas stove as well. The oven is electric. I _think_ the cost of nat gas is fixed country wide ?


Mexicans use solid copper tubing for gas lines in the walls so a leak there is not likely. Still, you should be using a lot less gas with a tankless heater. Mix some dish washing liquid with some water and brush it on the fittings where the heater attaches to the copper tubing and also at the supply. Chances are your leak is there and a little Teflon tape will save you a lot of pesos.


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## WintheWin (Jul 15, 2015)

GARYJ65 said:


> It will not be 1,500 pesos for a 300 lt tank, those are at least 3800 pesos, just the tank, then, installation materials and labor
> It does not sound to me like unfair, or "to be at the mercy of the gas company"
> You were not careful enough to check if that house owed electric bills, gas, predial, etc. Get over it, pay the bill and learn the lesson


When the house was purchased it needed to be cleared of all it's debts, else the notario couldn't move forward. The previous owners paid off the light and water, we payed the predial up to date. 

The notario issues a notice of "no debts" and such.

Turns out though, that NG isn't a government service, and it's done through a contractor, so the notario didn't have to investigate. 

The previous owners were aware of the debt, because they had done a series of "convenios" to not get their service cut, but continue to accumulate debt.

Regardless: Problem Solved!

The gas company contacted me and will forgive the prior debt, because it occurred before the house belonged to me, and it's been a while back. When I contacted the 1-800 number, service was terrible. "The contracting company will contact you if it can do anything about it." "What if it can't? "Well, I don't know then." "I mean, will they contact me regardless so they can tell me nothing can be done about the prior debt?" "I don't know. I can't say."

I went in person to the office, world of a difference in service. 

If the consumption was low, I'd understand. But by golly, 4000 pesos in GAS? My grandma has her boiler on, day and night, since forever. 100-120 pesos monthly.

Fundamentally, I understand why this is done...
so you don't owe money, and then change the contract to a different person living in the house, etc, forever. 

That's why the contract should be made in the owner's name, but if he owner is no longer the owner... well... Just my opinion. (But then... it makes sense, because if the owner wanted to get gas service anywhere else, he'd be blacklisted, so that's an incentive not to owe utilities.)

What I don't understand, is why offer convenios to people who can't pay the service after they're substantially in debt? If you owe 2000 pesos in gas, and you can't pay it, why do they let you build up to 4000 in gas? (I was shown the previous receipts at the gas company, and it was a series of 200-300 bills, that couldn't be paid, the contract titular made a measly 'minimum' payment, and his service didn't cut, but then he'd add another 200-300... until they eventually left the property.)


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## Andreas_Montoya (Jan 12, 2013)

WintheWin said:


> When the house was purchased it needed to be cleared of all it's debts, else the notario couldn't move forward. The previous owners paid off the light and water, we payed the predial up to date.
> 
> The notario issues a notice of "no debts" and such.
> 
> ...


Perhaps they are a bit kinder than American companies who think nothing of cutting off the gas. Seniors freeze to death at times but they just don't care.


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## chuck846 (Jan 15, 2016)

Andreas_Montoya said:


> Mexicans use solid copper tubing for gas lines in the walls so a leak there is not likely. Still, you should be using a lot less gas with a tankless heater. Mix some dish washing liquid with some water and brush it on the fittings where the heater attaches to the copper tubing and also at the supply. Chances are your leak is there and a little Teflon tape will save you a lot of pesos.


Thanks for the suggestion. We have a 300L tank on the roof of the 2nd story next to the tinaco. The tankless water heater is in a room on the 2nd story. I think I could even see all the copper tubing between the two. When we installed the tankless heater we also replaced a few of the valves. Soon (when we use up enough gas to allow it to be movable) we are planning on replacing our 16 year old tank (which is still in good condition) and replace all the valves associated with it.

450 pesos/month for gas is not the end of the world. Not when you are used to paying $450 USD/month for electricity in the States. Here - I'll bet the bulk of our gas consumption is the gas dryer. We hang a lot of stuff on the line but dry things like towels, sheets etc. That and the time my wife cooked a Thanskgiving turkey in the gas oven on the second story kitchen. With our PV system we always see electric cheaper than gas now. No more gas cooked turkeys...

Another possibility is that the tankless heater is set at a 'hotter' setting than the old tank heater. We put the tankless heater in because there were times before where we ran out of hot water. Now that is never the case.


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