when can I refuse a prepayment meter

meercatsunited

thanks for all your replies, appreciated, the tenant has upped their payment so it may be ok but at least we know not to fight the utility co. and waste money on court fees.

chanz4

As above all meters are the suppliers property not the owner/landlords, even if you put it in your tennancy that they can have pre-pays it is not valid as you do not have authority to act on behalf of the supplier.

macman

VfM4meplse wrote: »

When looking to buy a place, an electricity meter would actively put me off buying. Apart from the sheer inconvenience of having to top it up, it screams out poverty.

The absence of a meter would indicate no electricity supply-that would put me off even more...
I presume you mean a PPM?

macman

meercatsunited wrote: »

thanks for all your replies, appreciated, the tenant has upped their payment so it may be ok but at least we know not to fight the utility co. and waste money on court fees.

But it's not your case to fight-it's a matter between the tenant and their supplier.

[Deleted User]

absolutely no point in trying to fight any prepay being fitted if your tenants not paying his/her dues. its in your best interests, and the tenants come to that, to go on a payg meter.utililities hate applying for warrants nowadays because of the costs involved. I work for Brit Gas as a meter reader and have been told that they re really cutting back on warrents so if poss you could push it to the limit regarding ammount of repayments.

spiro

VfM4meplse wrote: »

If you have a busy working life, who has time to go out to your nearest retailer and top it up? I keep the bare minimum of cash on me, and can think of nothing worse of than running out in the middle of the night with no means of turning on the heating, a light, a kettle, not being able to operate the power shower etc. I'm not wasteful of energy, but would not want to monitor it all the time. Meters are Victorian inconvenience IMO.

Several suppliers now offer home vend so you dont even need to go out of the front door to top up the meter. When smart meters arrive suppliers will be able to switch a meter from credit to ppm by just pressing a button in their offifce.

chanz4

Thats if suppliers continue with smart meters, seen as they have now been all told they dont have to. http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=18711

[Deleted User]

Hi spiro, they ve already arrived,I ve been reading them for the last 2 years in my job. Theres no facility at all as far as i can tell in also using them as prepays.at least theres no slots for a card or a key in the ones i see for Brit Gas.Maybe they have another way of making them operate as smarts tho. we were hoping our jobs may last a bit longer with prepays being the last to go smart

chanz4

Some of the old iron bridge meters have a switch in them, which enables them to act as credit or pre-pays. Also Im unable to post here but their is a certain brand which the software reverts to credit mode.

utility_csa

chanz4 wrote: »

Some of the old iron bridge meters have a switch in them, which enables them to act as credit or pre-pays. Also Im unable to post here but their is a certain brand which the software reverts to credit mode.

I was under the impression the ironbridge meters had to have the pp unit removed, never knew that! weird to here someone call them ironbridge meters, hardly anyone does!.

Also to the OP, be careful. my landlord rents another property where the tenants put the bills into his name, racked a few thousand up then just left. he unluckily had to pay as it was in his name...

I believe if you had a payment plan and the tenants aren't missing their payments the supplier cannot force the customer to have a prepayment meter.