Bought house with pre-payment meter - need help?

Mezza1979

Hi there

I am buying a house that has a prepayment meter installed for both Gas & Electric.

The house has been let out by the owners for many years and not all tennants have been timely woth thir payments which is qhy it was installed.

Does anyone know if it costs anything to have this changed to normal monthly direct debit? Can all providers do this?

Itscurrently supplied by Southern Electric but having done a comparison in Uswitch it would appear that Southern Electric are the mnost expensive supplier for that Postcode so we would like to change.

owners have told us as soon as we exchnage cointracts we can instruct the choosen supplied to carry out the change.

Anyone come across this before or have any advice?

Also, the gas box cover outside is old and broken (no door/side of it cracked). Does anyone know if i can get the gas board to replace the box and is it free?

Thanks

HappyMJ

Mezza1979 wrote: »

Hi there

I am buying a house that has a prepayment meter installed for both Gas & Electric.

The house has been let out by the owners for many years and not all tennants have been timely woth thir payments which is qhy it was installed.

Does anyone know if it costs anything to have this changed to normal monthly direct debit? Can all providers do this?

Itscurrently supplied by Southern Electric but having done a comparison in Uswitch it would appear that Southern Electric are the mnost expensive supplier for that Postcode so we would like to change.

owners have told us as soon as we exchnage cointracts we can instruct the choosen supplied to carry out the change.

Anyone come across this before or have any advice?

Also, the gas box cover outside is old and broken (no door/side of it cracked). Does anyone know if i can get the gas board to replace the box and is it free?

Thanks

You could switch to a company first that may exchange the meters for free. Requires searching on the net to find one....or it'll cost around £50 per meter. You need to pass a credit check and may be required to pay a deposit. Once the meters have been replaced you can then switch again to the best online managed direct debit tariff you can find.

It's up to you to replace the meter housing.

Fire_Fox

Numerous threads on this if you run an advanced search. Contact SE and your chosen supplier to find out how much it costs to change the meter, generally there is a charge but occasionally they will do it for free to get/ keep your business. You may also have to pay a deposit.

[Deleted User]

Spoke to a lady only 2 hours ago who got B.Gas to change both her prepays.. no charge..Little chance of outside box repair by the suppliers, they are the property of the house owner. a new latch is about the best you can do out of them, if the meter reader broke it.

undaunted

Some companies will swap them for free if you wish to shop around or you could of course tell the current home owner that you require them to sort it out before exchanging contracts or cover the cost of any exchange.

pka_2

We had this when we bought our house, once we'd bought the property we rang up to change suppliers (you have to change before they will consider changing the meters) as it is we have stayed on the prepayment meter with the new supplier because we failed the credit check for credit meters (:mad: despite being given a mortgage for £170k plus we apparently weren't credit worthy enough for credit meters enven though we changed to our previous supplier which we'd never had a late payment with but that's a different story!) however once registered in your name the tariff (with our supplier anyway) is exactly the same as credit meter customers

Fire_Fox

pka wrote: »

We had this when we bought our house, once we'd bought the property we rang up to change suppliers (you have to change before they will consider changing the meters) as it is we have stayed on the prepayment meter with the new supplier because we failed the credit check for credit meters (:mad: despite being given a mortgage for £170k plus we apparently weren't credit worthy enough for credit meters enven though we changed to our previous supplier which we'd never had a late payment with but that's a different story!) however once registered in your name the tariff (with our supplier anyway) is exactly the same as credit meter customers

You might be failing the credit check because you were new in the property. You won't have any history at that address, not on the electoral register, no banking or mobile phone accounts listed. It can take a few weeks or months to get your credit files updated with your new address.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

Wywth

Mezza1979 wrote: »

Hi there

I am buying a house that has a prepayment meter installed for both Gas & Electric.

The house has been let out by the owners for many years and not all tennants have been timely woth thir payments which is qhy it was installed.

Does anyone know if it costs anything to have this changed to normal monthly direct debit? Can all providers do this?

Itscurrently supplied by Southern Electric but having done a comparison in Uswitch it would appear that Southern Electric are the mnost expensive supplier for that Postcode so we would like to change.

owners have told us as soon as we exchnage cointracts we can instruct the choosen supplied to carry out the change.

Anyone come across this before or have any advice?

Also, the gas box cover outside is old and broken (no door/side of it cracked). Does anyone know if i can get the gas board to replace the box and is it free?

Thanks

This link should be useful in describing how the major companies go about such requests to change the meter

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/news/how-to-switch-from-a-prepayment-energy-meter/0014939/

I wouldn't do anything until you complete the purchase. (You don't want to be paying for the sellers energy)
Then you will need to register with the existing suppliers, from where you can siwtch supplier and/or request a change in type of meter

The damaged box? You mean the box in which the meter is housed. As a house owner, you will be responsible for this.

bxboards

I got nPower to change both my gas and electric meters for a house I bought in June 2011, and they did these for free.

They also did the gas meter for free too, for another house I bought in July 2012 - as I had no history at that property, they used my billing and payment history for previous address so no deposit / fee was required again.