New to UK living - without switching who is the best option?

dan_and_family

I am moving to the UK from the US and I am setting up all our utilities in advance. Most of the discussion on this site is for the best deal if you are switching, but not if you are starting from scratch.

Who is the best / cheapest option for gas and electricity if we are going straight to them without any switch incentives.

We are moving to a three-bedroom house in the London suburbs. The people who left the property we are moving into were with British Gas, but I have no details on the average usage from the house.

Any advise would be much appreciated!

Thanks

gt94sss2

dan_and_family wrote: »

I am moving to the UK from the US and I am setting up all our utilities in advance. Most of the discussion on this site is for the best deal if you are switching, but not if you are starting from scratch.

Who is the best / cheapest option for gas and electricity if we are going straight to them without any switch incentives.

We are moving to a three-bedroom house in the London suburbs. The people who left the property we are moving into were with British Gas, but I have no details on the average usage from the house.

If you're moving into a property, you have to join the existing/previous supplier.

Once you've moved in, you can then apply to switch provider/tariff depending on your needs.

Regards
Sunil

JasX

dan_and_family wrote: »

Most of the discussion on this site is for the best deal if you are switching, but not if you are starting from scratch.

Who is the best / cheapest option for gas and electricity if we are going straight to them without any switch incentives.

As above there is zero difference in the offers/deals you will be offered switching vs starting from scratch. you will automatically inherit the existing supplier as your 'deemed supplier'. The main piece of admin you'll need to worry about is finding out who that is, getting a reading (gas, electricity +water) on the day you move in, notifying the supplier you have moved in so they can close out the old occupiers account and setup a NEW account for you.

You'll then likely end up on a 'standard' expensive tariff with them and look to switch sooner rather than later to an online / dd / competative tariff.

also then worth keeping an eye on the meter for he first week incase the previous occupier was a bit dim and had something turned right up/left on 24/7 that's running up an unessarily large bill

jd87

As has been said, there's no such thing as "starting from scratch" with UK utilities. Every property already has a supplier and if you want to choose the supplier yourself, it will require a switch. If the previous people were with British Gas then so are you.

dogshome

Hi dan_and_family - Welcome to the UK, or is it welcome home?
As already posted, the moment you have responsibility for the this house read the Gas, Elec. & Water meter if there is one

It's important that you advise Brit.Gas of the Elec. & Gas meter readings on that day, however you will be registered as a 'New' customer and automatically put onto an expensive 'Standard' tariff and in the interests of your wallet, you should try to change this as soon as possible.

To successfully Switch Supplier/Tariff, you need to know your annual Kw consumption of gas & Elec, which obviously you won't know
If you can't ask the previous owners, I suggest you use an annual figure of 18,000Kw for Gas and 5500Kw for Elect. By punching these figures into the Switch sites you can get comparative prices from all the companies, including better tariffs from Brit. Gas - The best prices will be offered Online reporting of your meter readings coupled with payment by monthly Direct Debit
Keep in mind that these figures are an Estimate so regularly take you meter readings to check that you are not Under or Overpaying by way of your monthly Direct Debits

Water is supplied by just one company in each area, and billing is based either on the *Rateable Value of the house which is a fixed sum + inflation each year, or it is based on consumption measured thro' a water meter. Most companies insist they fit a Water Meter when a property changes hands, but that takes time and some Co's don't bother
*Rateable Value is an arcane system of measuring house values that Local Govt used to use for Local taxes, but it is still used by the water Co's - It has huge anomolies and in some cases it's cheaper than a Water meter.