Gradual move-in?

Crumble2018

Hello,
We have had an offer accepted on a flat, and we are currently renting. If it all goes through OK, we’d ideally like to overlap the 2 flats and move into the new one over a week or 2. Has anyone else done this, and if so, how do you deal with the gas and electric as we’d need it in both properties whilst we move?
Thanks!

Finchy2018

We had a 2 month overlap. Gas and electricity are per house they don't follow you. We just had to pay 2 sets of bills and rent and mortgage for 2 months. But worth it as we redecorated whilst the house was empty and took our time moving a luxury we won't have if we ever move again.

Crumble2018

Finchy2018 wrote: »

We had a 2 month overlap. Gas and electricity are per house they don't follow you. We just had to pay 2 sets of bills and rent and mortgage for 2 months. But worth it as we redecorated whilst the house was empty and took our time moving a luxury we won't have if we ever move again.

So if I spoke to our utilities companies, they can just set me up a new account in the new flat, whilst maintaining it in the old one? I guess I was thinking it would be more complicated than that!

Finchy2018

Yeah or I stuck with the provider the previous owners used then shopped around for the best deal. But water I just had two accounts on my online log in. Very straight forward.

anselld

elsimsy wrote: »

So if I spoke to our utilities companies, they can just set me up a new account in the new flat, whilst maintaining it in the old one? I guess I was thinking it would be more complicated than that!

No. You start off on a "deemed" contract with whoever currently supplies the property. You can select a tariff on day one but you cannot use a supplier of your choice. Thereafter you can follow the switching process if you wish.

lookstraightahead

Think carefully about things like your car insurance etc for your primary residence.

Silvertabby

We had a 2 week overlap between vacating our Married Quarter and moving into our new build.

Our new house came without carpets/hard flooring/curtain rails/etc so we were able to have all that done before we actually moved in.

Worth every penny of the doubled up costs.

Albala

We're doing this at the moment. All the utilities seem to be different. Gas and electric as anselld says, water authority in the new area (United Utilities) want us to wait until we have completed and will give us 'a few days' after that to notify them we're taking over- great if your broadband is up and running, less great if not. We'll cancel our current providers when we have a completion date for this property. In our case, all the utilities, council, the lot, will be different 'providers except BT, who ironically have to date been the biggest nuisance. BT want 2, preferably 6, weeks notice (how many people have 6 weeks between contract an completion?) and we had to set up the new place by talking to a human as their website can't cope with anyone not doing a direct move from on to another property. They said one day we'd be connected on the day of completion, the following day said it would be the day after, said the router would go through the letterbox, then got a text to say we'd have to collect it.:o Council tax- seem to want us to wait until we're in as far as we can work it out, but we have contacted them to give them a 'heads-up'. Because we can't sell the current place for a few months, the council tax will not be the standard rate as house 2 will count as a second home, it seems. In your case as you're currently renting I suppose that doesn't apply.

AnotherJoe

You've imagined its more complex than it is by thinking you have gas and electric contracts to you that will cover multiple properties whereas you have contracts for each property.
So simply keep your existing one running until you leave, and when you move in start the process of getting a new supplier for the new house which could be your existing one or different.

hazyjo

Albala wrote: »

Council tax- seem to want us to wait until we're in as far as we can work it out, but we have contacted them to give them a 'heads-up'. Because we can't sell the current place for a few months, the council tax will not be the standard rate as house 2 will count as a second home, it seems. In your case as you're currently renting I suppose that doesn't apply.

Varies from council to council. It's not so much to do with 'second home ownership', more about 'second home occupation' I think. Councils can charge less for second occupancy, or nowt, or more. The OP will need to look into it in both locations.

bopsybunny

We overlapped a bit when we bought ours. Simply took a meter reading of gas/electric when we locked up the rented house for the last time, and gave that to the energy provider (Utility Warehouse), paid our last bill and moved on.

At new house, we had to take over the bills with the energy provider our vendor had used (British Gas), but this time we gave them the meter readings from when we got the keys. We immediately switched to a new energy provider (Eon), and just paid the old provider a very small bill to cover the interim period, on their standard rates, before the switchover. It was all actually really simple to manage.

We did have to pay council tax concurrently - Kirklees council insisted that we paid up until our tenancy ended (technically a week or so after we returned keys to the vendor!) even though we had no access to any property in the district. That really angered me but it was just their policy. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't much money lost, I was just annoyed out of principle.

Water bill - rented house was not on a meter, so we just paid up until the day we handed back the keys. New house is on a meter so we gave a reading when we moved in and went from there.