When a tenant dies his Utility Bills die with him?

Instead of faffing around why don't they write to the executor or PR who, in order to discharge their duty to ascertain and settle liabilities, should do the reverse?

Interesting. We've all had cases of tenants who leave with utility debt. We just tell the supplier the date and meter reading, accepting responsibility from that date/reading.
Why should it be any different with a death?

We had an elderly gentleman die in one of our rental properties and informed British Gas. We included the death certificate and I telephoned them several times to confirm the details. In the end they sent a series of threatening letters to the property addressed to ' Mr Fletcher (deceased)'. They were threatening to take him to Court and ruin his credit rating, meaning he would have trouble gaining credit in the future! I called them again to say he was still dead and I would not be speaking to them again on this matter. I wished them luck and hoped they did well when they took this through to Court.

What does the law state regarding liability? I would have thought that:

1) any debt incurred by the tenant up to date of death is the estate's liability.

2) any debt incurred after the date of death will depend upon:
a) the nature of the Tenancy Agreement ie. whether its within a fixed term, after a break, or periodic (maybe estate liable for 1 month only)
b) whether there is a beneficiary willing to continue the tenancy
c) when the keys are handed back

Direct contact with a next-of-kin and/or executor will certainly help. Getting the Damages Deposit paid out can be a grind.

There is also another issue. The utility company are billing a third party using readings etc pertinent to the tenant. They are in breach of GDPR and could face massive fines.(see ico v British airways. I wager they will retreat quick enough when the British gas case is stated and the threat of an ICO fine.

Reply to the comment left by Ian Cognito at 11/07/2019 - 11:00
I agree Ian surely the debt needs to be perused via the estate. How can a landlord be liable for the utility account of somebody else ? Using this logic could for example, a landlord be liable for the deceased’s unpaid car loan payments ? Obviously not. Seems the same to me here.

Slightly different situation encountered by myself.
A utility provider came after me for around £700 but, although I accepted liability for some sort of financial payment, I maintained that the charge had to be "reasonable". For various reasons it was utterly impossible to accurately quantify an accurate charge. So the bill was based om procedural (No judgement) guesswork.
After many months of my refusing to pay a charge which was, at a common sense level, far too high, I ran out of patience. I informed the utility provider that it was obvious that they were incapable of sending me a bill which we could agree was reasonable. As such further communication at this level on the matter was pointless. I therefore advised them that the next communication that I required from them was a summons to appear before a judge.
The utility provider wrote the entire bill off...........

From the excellent article and helpful comments and examples it seems the utility companies just want their money and they don't care who pays it. Are any of them owned by non-British companies? If French, for example, are they following a different process in the UK to the process they follow in France? If so, then perhaps they could be asked to explain why.

If the utility issue a 'deadlock letter', how does one respond?

It looks to me like the utility companies are de-facto demanding money with menaces. I guess something like 90% pay up without complaining, another 5% after some threats and aggravation and 5% fight to success but it's a successful business model for the 95% of money they would otherwise lose or have to spend more finding the Executor than the bill is worth.

Reply to the comment left by Mark Hunter at 11/07/2019 - 10:20
"...still dead", I am still chuckling and would love to know how this one worked out.