Trapped on business gas/electricity in new home

KnittingAmy

Hello,
We've just bought a new home, which was used as student accommodation and managed by a college. Both gas and electricity have been supplied by companies providing business energy. We've just received a letter from Corona (gas) telling us that we are on a deemed rate of 14p/kWh and a daily standing charge of £3.72!!! When trying to change to another provider, we have been told that we cannot as the gas meter is registered as a business one, not a residential one. Does anyone know what our rights are as the company we wish to switch to suggests Corona needs to do something about the meter, but they say they don't. 
We're dreading hearing what the electricity company will be charging us in the meantime 😩
Any advice would be much appreciated!
Amy

Robin9

Normally I would say switch to someone like BG who do both Gas and Electric  and they could. sort it out.

Have you contact details for the college - if so a stiff letter to the Bursar won't harm. That should have been sorted by the college before they sold it.

KnittingAmy

Thanks, that may be worth a try! 

Mobtr

KnittingAmy said:

Hello,
We've just bought a new home, which was used as student accommodation and managed by a college. Both gas and electricity have been supplied by companies providing business energy. We've just received a letter from Corona (gas) telling us that we are on a deemed rate of 14p/kWh and a daily standing charge of £3.72!!! When trying to change to another provider, we have been told that we cannot as the gas meter is registered as a business one, not a residential one. Does anyone know what our rights are as the company we wish to switch to suggests Corona needs to do something about the meter, but they say they don't. 
We're dreading hearing what the electricity company will be charging us in the meantime 😩
Any advice would be much appreciated!
Amy

The national database will need to be updated to show the meter is residential now & not business otherwise you won’t be able to change unless to another business company. If it’s now residential, you should have a council tax bill which Corona should ask to see & then update it for you 

KnittingAmy

Thanks Mobtr! We'll follow that advice and hopefully won't be stuck with these outrageous deemed tariffs for too long before we are able to switch! Have a good Sunday 👍

KnittingAmy

Thought I'd update for anyone else who might find themselves in our position in the future. We have just finished talking to our new energy supplier and will now be (hopefully!) transferring to a domestic supplier and much better domestic rates. 

Once we had identified what needed to happen (gas meter getting marked as domestic, not business), Corona very quickly updated us so that this was reflected in the national database.

We hit a further snag with the electricity. Opus (another business-only provider, who charged us £4 per day standing charge) had also updated things so that our meter was marked as domestic. However, when our new provider tried to initiate a switch, they found they could not, because we were listed as only having moved to Opus four days ago (not 29, as was correct). This meant we could not switch until 28 days after that date. It took an hour on to Opus to sort this out - thank goodness we found the freephone number 0800 630 0841 or it would have been further expense. There seemed to be a lot of confusion over the issue and the call was forwarded to different people a few times. Thankfully, it seems to have been resolved, so we hope to be back on normal (whatever that is nowadays!) rates very soon.

Robin9

This good news Amy. Just such a shame that if someone had done their job properly it would have been resolved before you bought the property

KnittingAmy

Oh dear. The new energy supplier has just told us that they can't transfer of because of the date issue. Opus did assure us, after the lengthy telephone call that there wouldn't be an issue, but this is not the case. What a shame!

KnittingAmy

Latest update - after two months, we managed to finally transfer our electricity away from Opus and were feeling relieved. Until a closing bill of £800 came today, which covers a period five months before we even bought the property. It seems that when the college, which was operating it as a student house ended their contract with Opus, the people who owned it never registered themselves as responsible for the supply.

We've resent the paperwork we sent back in Feb/Mar to confirm we were the new owners. They were unable to find this in their systems, weirdly. I just can't understand how it could have gone unnoticed until now!

Just when we thought all those hours on the phone to them were behind us........