By implementing the provisions of the 2018 budget law in the regulation, in the case of electricity bills due after 1 March, in cases of significant delays in billing by sellers or in the billing of adjustments due to the unavailability of actual data for a particularly significant period, the customer will be able to object to the so-called short statute of limitations (passed from 5 to 2 years) and pay only for the last 24 months invoiced.
The seller will be required to inform the customer of the possibility of doing so at the same time as issuing the invoice with these characteristics and in any case at least 10 days in advance of the expiry of the payment terms. Furthermore, in the event of a delay by the seller in invoicing the adjustments (although promptly having the corrective measurement data available) for consumption referring to periods longer than two years, the customer is entitled to suspend payment, subject to a complaint to the seller and if the Antitrust (Agcm) has opened a proceeding against the latter, and will also be entitled to receive a refund of the payments made if the Agcm proceeding ends with the ascertainment of a violation.
This is what is envisaged by resolution 97/2018/R/com, applying the rules introduced with the 2018 budget law on time, which aims to reduce the phenomenon of non-ordinary amounts in consumer bills, acting with provisions aimed at making both sellers and distributors. In this way, families and small businesses will be better protected from the risk of having to pay the so-called "maxi bills", i.e. much higher amounts than usual, deriving from significant delays by sellers (for example billing block), corrections of the previously supplied by the distributor and used to bill or persistent missed meter readings by the distributors, where this absence is not attributable to the conduct of the final customer.
The resolution identifies the expiry of the term for the two-year limitation period envisaged by the 2018 budget law from the moment within which the sellers are obliged to issue the billing document, as identified by the regulation in force. Considering the scope of the budget law on the Authority's regulatory system, in order to complete the definition in relation to the electricity sector and also for the gas sector, the resolution also initiates a procedure to identify a set of organic rules to be applied throughout the supply chain.
Resolution 97/2018/R/com is available on the website www.arera.it
