Advice on what to do next

MeganG94

I have lived in my house for 7 years. When we first moved in we took over the meters which were pay as you go so we had to top up using a key and then put it into our meter. We switched to british gas as my mother in law was with them. We were spending a lot of money on energy. I was topping up over £40 a week in both meters and therefore wanted to pay via direct debit. British gas wouldn't let me as they said I failed a credit check even though I know my credit score is very high and not far off top score on Experian. Anyway so my mother in law put the account in her name but the payments come from my bank account and clearly my name is on the account. I now want to change them to my name and switch providers or tariffs as I am spending over £160 a month on energy. I now have 2 children and cannot afford this. Is it best to behave like a new customer who has just moved in or try to explain the situation to british gas (which we have already but they didnt understand, they just sent us a link through to a new property account set up not new person). Any advice is great! 

MWT

I suspect that whatever you do, BG are going to treat this as a close of your mother-in-laws account and the opening of a new account in your name.

That means you are going to go through the process of providing meter readings to close out her account and start yours.

Given that you intend to leave BG anyway, it might make sense to do the switch first and then sort out terminating her account and starting yours once the move is complete, but watch out for any termination penalties on the tariff she moves to...