Best way to deal with bills whilst moving houses

shurik2020

Hi All,

We are hoping to exchange/complete by the end of this month, fingers crossed. All going well we will have at least a couple of weeks of overlap where we will still have our present house and own the new one hopefully making it a less stressful move. What I wondering about is how to deal with utilities and council taxes for this "overlap" period. The new house will essentially be empty for a couple of weeks whilst we are moving stuff across and making some repairs. 
Do we just move the utilities across on the day of the actual move with meter information from the completion date? How do we avoid getting double billed on a council tax (same Local Authority)? 

Any feedback much appreciated. 

AdrianC

You don't "move" utilities.

You set a new account up at the new place, and close the account at the old one.

As for CT - you don't avoid it. You're liable for it at both.

dimbo61

Some councils are more understanding and as your moving from one property in the borough to another property in the borough they won't charge you twice. 
Ask them nicely 😉.
Set up new account in new property and give forwarding address to old supplies.
Read the meters and take photos.
As your now buying why not head down to B and M, Home Bargain, Wilko, Wickes ,B and Q / Toolstation or Screwefix and change every single bulb for LED lights which will pay for themselves in 18months.

shurik2020

Thanks for the reply AdrianC. 
Just to clarify, we understand there will be additional expenses due to the overlap. Just looking for ways how minimise our exposure. 
A lot of utilities providers offer "move house" service where I assume the account stays the same. If that was the case, when do we do it? If we have to open new accounts for the new house I might consider getting all the new customer incentives. 
In terms of the CT, is it even possible to have two accounts in the same name? It has been almost 5 years since we moved last time. 

ThePants999

Mandatory stuff like water, gas, electricity, Council Tax - you're liable at both properties during the overlap, so you handle this by setting up new accounts when you start owning the new property, and closing the old accounts when you move out of the old one. That's easy to do, so you needn't worry about what you're losing out by not "moving" your old account. Obviously the sum total of water+energy you're consuming won't be very different to when you just had one, so you're pretty much just looking at standing charges plus Council Tax - and you should be able to successfully argue to the council(s) that one of the properties is unfurnished during the overlap, which should get you a discount of up to 100% on one of the properties during the overlap, varying by council.

TV license - you're not watching TV in both properties simultaneously, so you just tell them you've moved at the point you move your TV, basically.

The most "fun" comes with cable/satellite. If you're outside a contract, cancelling your old one and setting up a new one at the new property is probably a really good idea, as the new customer incentives will vastly outweigh a minor period of overlap. If you're inside a contract, though, you'll need to just transfer to the new property. I booked (re)installation at the new property well in advance, and since broadband was critical to me, I basically arranged the rest of my move around when they could do that :-)

davidmcn

shurik2020 said:

In terms of the CT, is it even possible to have two accounts in the same name?

Of course. You can have an infinite number of accounts, if you're the occupier at all the properties.