Moving House - Supplier / Prepaid meter question

donkey1969

After some advice if possible, we currently rent a property and pay npower £254 per month dd for elec + gas, we are ( hopefully ) buying a house which has its gas / elec supplied by british gas on prepaid meters. We have been told by our sols to contact bg on completion and get them to issue new keys to the meters, will this tie us into a contract with them as ideally we would like to shop around and find the cheapest fixed deal and have the meters changed from prepaid to normal meters like we are used to ( I understand that prepaid is expensive, but have never had them before )

Thanks for any advice / tips

macman

You can't switch until you have registered with the existing supplier. There may be a charge for changing the meters (depending on supplier), and you may be asked to put down a deposit for a credit account depending on the credit check.
PS: what size of palace do you currently rent to be paying £3,048pa for dual fuel? That's about 250% more than then the average property.

Premier_2

donkey1969 wrote: »

... ( I understand that prepaid is expensive, but have never had them before )...

Not anymore. Prepaid is typically about the same price as the suppliers standard tariff. I think with BG it may actually be slightly chaeper, but check for yourself with the supplier.

donkey1969

macman wrote: »

You can't switch until you have registered with the existing supplier. There may be a charge for changing the meters (depending on supplier), and you may be asked to put down a deposit for a credit account depending on the credit check.
PS: what size of palace do you currently rent to be paying £3,048pa for dual fuel? That's about 250% more than then the average property.

4 bed detached, but we have a son who is severely disabled, his medical equipment is on 24 / 7 and he feels the cold, so heating in his room always on.
The credit check will not be a problem, but if the prepaid is roughly the same as our standard tariff it maybe easier to stay with bg rather than have the the elec off whilst they change the meters over, in a power cut my son goes straight to hospital, but it is traumatic for him, and the move itself is going to be difficult for him.

t0rt0ise

If you need power 24/7 then in my opinion prepaid is not for you as it often breaks and you end up with no power at all. British Gas will change the meters for you for nothing if you ask. They changed mine for me last year. It is also a lot more expensive even though people say it isn't. You lose out on the cheapest internet tariffs and direct debit discounts. When I had those meters I was constantly feeding them. Hated it.

It takes a few minutes to change the meters so not long at all.