Rental Property has Gas/Elec prepayment meters help!!

neas

Situation is this:

Rental property We have yet to sign for move into has prepayment meters installed and I do not like these and would really love for them to be converted back into proper payment meters i.e direct debit etc so I can get duel fuel + direct debit discounts etc.

The meters are with southern electric I believe, What sort of cost is associated with converting the meters?

I.e is in 20/30 quid region or is 100's? The suplier is Souther Electric.

Thanks

ex-energywatch_adviser

Suppliers don't normally charge for changing a prepayment meter to a standard credit meter but there are other factors to consider:

• Your landlord may have had the prepayment meters installed to ensure tenants don't rack up large bills then disappear when the supply is disconnected for non payment, leaving the landlord to incur the costs of having the supply reconnected. You would need to check the terms of your tenancy agreement as changing the meters without the landlord's permission may be a breach of the agreement.
• If the landlord agrees to have the meters changed, the supplier will normally carry out a credit check on you before they carry out the work. If you don't pass the credit check they will either refuse to exchange the meters or ask you to pay a security deposit first.

neas

if the meters are with say Southern Electric could it be possible to switch my existing Click Energy 6 dual fuel with British Gas directly over to the meter? Or do I have to sign up with SE... get the meter changed then convert to British Gas?

Cheers.

ex-energywatch_adviser

To answer your questions in order,

No you can't transfer another supplier's dual fuel tariff onto prepayment meters.

Yes you would have to deal with the existing supplier first. Assuming this is a domestic supply, how the process works is as follows:
When you move into a property you automatically enter into a deemed contract with whoever supplied the previous occupant. It is your responsibility to contact that supplier and provide your details and a current meter reading. At this stage you can either agree a contract with the existing supplier or provide them with notice that you intend to transfer to another supplier. If you do intend to transfer, you will still have to pay the existing supplier for all supply used from day one until you successfully transfer to your chosen supplier. This can take on average 4 to 6 weeks. It is important that you register with the existing supplier first, especially if there are prepayment meters involved, as failure to do this could result in any payments you make through the meters being credited to the previous occupant's account.

You could ask the existing supplier to exchange the meters (taking into account the points I raised in my earlier post) and then transfer to your chosen supplier or you could transfer on the prepayment meters then ask your chosen supplier to exchange them.

ic

When I moved into my house which had prepayment meters, I told my existing supplier that I was moving and that I wanted to switch over to credit meters. They supplied me with new cards to use in the meters, and a month later changed the meters over to credit. I never dealt with the existing suppliers. When bills came for the previous occupants, I rang up their suppliers and provided the new address.

Premier_2

Usually if they agree to supply you a credit meter and you agree to pay monthly via DD, you can avoid any need to pay a security deposit.

ex-energywatch_adviser

I would have to admit that even with 30 years experience in the energy supply industry I am a bit confused by IC's post. What he/she appears to be saying is that the property they were moving out of was supplied by supplier A and the property they were moving into was supplied by supplier B.
IC contacted supplier A and got prepayment cards from them so they were using energy supplied by supplier B but were paying supplier A for meters they didn't supply???
While there is always a way to buck the system, for the one person that manages it there will be hundreds who have encountered major problems by not following the correct procedures.

spiro

ex-energywatch_adviser wrote: »

I would have to admit that even with 30 years experience in the energy supply industry I am a bit confused by IC's post. What he/she appears to be saying is that the property they were moving out of was supplied by supplier A and the property they were moving into was supplied by supplier B.
IC contacted supplier A and got prepayment cards from them so they were using energy supplied by supplier B but were paying supplier A for meters they didn't supply???
While there is always a way to buck the system, for the one person that manages it there will be hundreds who have encountered major problems by not following the correct procedures.

What IC is saying is that a Change of Supplier and Change of Tenant happened at the same time. This is covered by the Change of Supply process as it removes the old supplier ability to object to the transfer because it is not the same customer as was being supplied by the old supplier.

Pssst

Premier wrote: »

Usually if they agree to supply you a credit meter and you agree to pay monthly via DD, you can avoid any need to pay a security deposit.

If only it were that simple. They will credit check you and they may or may not offer you credit/request a deposit.

Stuart_W

If you find your landlord does not want prepay meters removing, then sign up to EBICO - which should actually be a doddle as you'll still be a Southern Electric customer as they use Southern Electric in England for their billing.

See https://www.ebico.co.uk

They charge the same for any method of payment so you get massively reduced rates compared to everyone else's prepayment prices - and you keep your landlord happy. I had a tenancy agreement that specified Southern Electric as an energy supplier (not entirely sure if this was legal) and requesting prepayment meters to remain at the property - so switching to Ebico didn't actually break either of these conditions!

Vestra

Southern Electric will change your meters at no cost, but will do a credit check on you first and if they get notification of another supplier taking over the property they will cancel the job.