Death and Bills

catladyLou

Hi, 
I hope some of you wise people out there can help.
My dad has just died and I am now looking after mum and taking on all the bills. Just before the energy crisis I tied them into a fixed rate combined gas and elec bill
 which doesn’t expire until march 2023. Problem is this bill was solely in my dads name. It didn’t seem important at this point to have a jointly named account as no one was expecting him to die so young.
So before I go ringing the supplier EDF I was wondering does anyone know whether they would honour this contract with just a change of name or will they make me do a new contract. 

Has anyone experienced this??

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Just leave the account in your dad's name and carry on paying the bills.

If the account was being paid by direct debit from an account in your dad's name, just change the direct debit to your account.

catladyLou

Thanks for the welcome ☺️

I was considering doing this but not sure if I would get away with it!

QrizB

catladyLou said:

Thanks for the welcome ☺️

I was considering doing this but not sure if I would get away with it!

EDF won't care who's named so long as the bills keep being paid.

MovingForwards

When my mom died, her provider was happy to transfer the account to my sibling, still living in the property, but they set up a new one.

It may be an option with EDF too.

Edit to add, it looks possible:
https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/help-centre/faq/i-need-change-my-personal-details

My condolences for your loss.

Swipe

QrizB said:

catladyLou said:

Thanks for the welcome ☺️

I was considering doing this but not sure if I would get away with it!

EDF won't care who's named so long as the bills keep being paid.

Exactly, now is not the time to be changing names on the account. You can do that when the fix ends. Or even better, switch at the end of the fix and then register the new provider in your own name.

Mobtr

The correct procedure is to close the account & set up a new on which would mean you will lose the tariff. As long as your mum doesn’t mind seeing bills in your late dad’s name until the tariff expires, just leave things as they are. No one will know. The only issue might be the bank account, if it was solely in your dad’s name. If it was, change it by using WhatsApp/text as you can pretend to be him on there. Don’t think you can change it yourself online 

matelodave

I agree with Swipe, QrizB and Cardew just leave it as it is.

Mucking about with names on accounts is likely to end up with something dropping through the cracks, either by design or incompetence.

Swipe

If it's paid via a joint bank account it will still get paid even though it's registered in his name and his name is no longer on the joint account.

Cardew

Mobtr said:

 If it was, change it by using WhatsApp/text as you can pretend to be him on there. Don’t think you can change it yourself online 

At various times I have taken over paying for my children's gas/electricity when they were students, and later, also for my mother,. All I did was phone the company and gave them the energy account number and my bank details and the DD was changed immediately.

Mobtr

Cardew said:

Mobtr said:

 If it was, change it by using WhatsApp/text as you can pretend to be him on there. Don’t think you can change it yourself online 

At various times I have taken over paying for my children's gas/electricity when they were students, and later, also for my mother,. All I did was phone the company and gave them the energy account number and my bank details and the DD was changed immediately.

It will depend on who you speak to. A man ringing can pretend to be the account holder & go through DP but if the bank account is going to be in a different name, they should ask permission of the bank account holder.