By Our Reporter


A Court in Lagos, presided over by Hon. Justice I. Harrison, has ruled that electric Power Distribution Companies, DISCOs, have no legal right to transfer unpaid electric bills from a former occupant of a property, to a new tenant.

Justice Harrison, while delivering judgment Thursday last week, affirmed that the distribution companies should go after the debtor rather than an innocent new tenant, and awarded N1, 000,000.00 (one Million Naira) as damage against Eko Electricity Distribution Company.

The claimant’s lawyer, Ademola Owolabi, who posted on his media handle said: “Earlier today 6:8:2020, Hon. Justice I Harrison struck down the power of Eko Electricity Distribution Company to demand that a new tenant or new owner of a property should pay for power consumed on a property by the previous tenant or owner. 


“Often, DISCOs will refuse to connect a new user unless previous bills incurred by a previous consumer is paid by a new user. It effectively imposed past liability on the new user. Our client was in that category. 
We took the matter to Court and the Justice Harrison upheld our position and went ahead to award N1,000,000.00 as damages against Eko Electricity. 

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“As lawyers, we should use the law to advance a healthy society. Discos should go after the actual debtors and stop transferring the debt liability to the new users. 


We do hope the judgment of today will restore sanity in this area so that monopolies will stop putting their knees on our collective necks!”.