Pre-Payment Meters - Negative Balance when moving in?

Alias_Omega

Both Gas & Elec Meters have a negative balance when moving into the property.

Both are -£20+ as the house has been empty for 2 months.


How do you go about having this reset, as being new tenants or do we just top them up until we have can normal meters fitted?

If we were to have them reset, what sort of time scale are we talking about.

macman

You need to obtain your own key when you take over a property with PPM's, so call the supplier and register. You may be charged around £50 each for a switch to credit meters.

Joyful

It depends who your supplier is. Call them with the balance from both meters and they may get you a reset key from paypoint or may suggest you clear the balance if possible and then repay you.

jay1181

just phone up the company that supplies the property and state when you will be moving in they will send you a new key and if the meters have a debt on them they will send an electronic message to your nearest pay-point shop so you can top up with 1 pound per day for a few days until a message is received then when you top up your meter with the token pound on the key it would rest the meter to zero debt. This would be done within a week. If their is a large debt eg hundreds then the metering company eg Scottish power if in south Scotland,Scottish hydro if in the north of scotland (the company that owns the supply network to your house) would come out and rest your meter within a few days. hope this helps

Alias_Omega

macman wrote: »

You need to obtain your own key when you take over a property with PPM's, so call the supplier and register. You may be charged around £50 each for a switch to credit meters.

So, we register with the supplier who will send a Card (Gas) and a Key (Electric) in our own account, or change the Card/Key over into our names.

Then we top these up to remove the negative balance on the meters, which puts a positive balance on the account as the debt was not ours?

torbrex

BG have people on call 6 days a week (not Sun) to re-set gas meters and install an emergency credit to give time for a new card to be sent to you.
Electricity meters need to be re-set using a new key or the existing key needs to be cleared and set for the new user.

Alias_Omega

torbrex wrote: »

BG have people on call 6 days a week (not Sun) to re-set gas meters and install an emergency credit to give time for a new card to be sent to you.
Electricity meters need to be re-set using a new key or the existing key needs to be cleared and set for the new user.

Thats good.

We have had Pre-Payment meters moved onto normal meters before, just took 12 months.

Instead, we would credit £100 each month onto the electricity. We would receive some funny looks at in the post office queue..

SwanJon

torbrex wrote: »

BG have people on call 6 days a week (not Sun) to re-set gas meters and install an emergency credit to give time for a new card to be sent to you.

Just a heads up, but I wouldn't count on it being the same day. I've not checked recently, but it used to be 2-3 days notice for homemove reset.

torbrex

SwanJon wrote: »

Just a heads up, but I wouldn't count on it being the same day. I've not checked recently, but it used to be 2-3 days notice for homemove reset.

When I last did the 'wind-on's' (2 years ago) we were usually only give a couple of hours notice to get the job done and would be on call until 6pm weekdays and last call would be 5pm on Saturday.

SwanJon

For move-ins it used to be we needed 2/3 days notice to arrange a reset visit as a wind-on wouldn't remove the balance from the meter (although as you suggest, some same-day resets do happen).
I think they are now looking to reduce the amount of visits, and the first card will remove a bill from the meter.

While there are always exceptions to a rule I would recommend getting in touch with the energy supplier a couple of days before you move in - just in case.