Bought Flat in London, No Gas Supply, Suppliers Hesitant to Onboard Me

Schwarzwald

worrywart_3 said:

No one wants new customers at the moment as they have to offer gas under wholesale price that’s the issue and why they aren’t being too helpful. 

That would make sense, but then again I am surprised that there is no fall back option to source gas from even in a fully privatized market there should be one provider who must accept new clients, even if others dont want to, gas supply and heating is a necessity not an optional item to have, or?

QrizB

If the property has a connection you (or the vendor) should have a supplier and be paying the standing charge. This makes me wonder if the property has been disconnected.

The vendor is meant to declare all this to your solicitor as part of the paperwork before you buy. Did you get anything from your solicitor? Could you ask them?

A winter of electric heating could cost you £1-2000 which is a lot for an electricity bill but a fairly small fraction of the price of a London flat; by any chance did you got it for less than market price due to the vendor's intractability?

Schwarzwald

QrizB said:

If the property has a connection you (or the vendor) should have a supplier and be paying the standing charge. This makes me wonder if the property has been disconnected.

The vendor is meant to declare all this to your solicitor as part of the paperwork before you buy. Did you get anything from your solicitor? Could you ask them?

I am not aware it got disconnected and the Vendor did not disclose that. He stated nPower as the gas supplier.
It was a pre-paid meter so I am not sure there is a standing charge.

QrizB said:

A winter of electric heating could cost you £1-2000 which is a lot for an electricity bill but a fairly small fraction of the price of a London flat; by any chance did you got it for less than market price due to the vendor's intractability?

The vendor's intractability had previously led to purchases falling through and one of the reasons I tolerated his intractability was indeed that I got it at a double-digit % discount to Asking price, especially considering price increases over last 12 months.

But that discount doesn't heat my body now so I need a GAS SUPPLIER 

Schwarzwald

to close the loop and also provide info for future readers:

The vendor was able to provide me the MRPN number. 
The reason that the gas suppliers, Cadent and www.findmysupplier.energy could not find my property .... it turned out the MRPN was registered at the WRONG address, i.e. same street name but other in West London instead of East London. Who would have thought ....?

Once I had the MRPN, Eon confirmed they are the current supplier and issued me a new prepaid card and will install a new meter in Q1.

Also asked to rectify the MRPN registration error.

Unexpected twist and 

Property is with gas now and warm. Most important