Buying a house - No gas meter fitted..

swift_gti

Hi all,

My partner and I are in the process of hopefully buying our first house.
Its a reposession and has been vacant for a few months at least, and had all services disconnected when the reposession company took ownership.

The other day when we went round we noticed the gas meter door was not locked, and that there is no gas meter fitted.. just a pipe coming into the box from the bottom with what looks like a shutoff valve on it, and then some pipework towards the top of the box.

Would the gas company (Transco i think) have taken this out because the house was disconnected ?
Secondly, if we do get the house will we have to pay anything to have a gas meter fitted again? or does the gas company pay for that ?

Many Thanks!

Magentasue

I don't know about the disconnection but we had to have gas reconnected in our last house - about eight years' ago. I think we paid about £200 but that included piping from the road.

Gman0365

The gas meter has probably been removed because of unpaid debt. The emergency control valve will have been capped when the meter was removed - thats the shutoff valve at the bottom left of the box. Generally that is all that will be done initially, the gas transporter is then supposed to visit the address within 2 years (I think) to physically cut-off the gas service in the ground to prevent illegal use of the gas supply.

If the repossession / removal of the gas meter has been fairly recent then the gas supply service should still be "live". There is no need for you to find out whether the gas service is still live however you could contact the gas transporter for you're area to have this checked.

As there is no meter then there is no longer a supplier for this property and you should be able to apply to any UK gas supplier to have a new gas meter installed. Just phone them and explain the situation. They will be more than happy to accept a new customer and generally do not charge for a new meter installation as they expect to recoup the cost via you're continued custom. If you're told there will be a charge then I'd suggest you just phone another supplier!

Hope this helps.

swift_gti

Great, some good news for a change!
Thanks for the very helpful post :beer:

lemontart

The first thing to do is to arrange for a live or dead if live you just have to contact a gas supplier of choice to arrange for a metre to be fiitted if dead it means you will need a new gas service installed before a meter can be fitted.

More info here http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Connections/