Moving into my first ever house

sasparillo2

I am moving into my first ever house & need to arrange utilities quickly. I am moving to Cumbria so the water will be with United Utilities. As it is my first house I do not have any idea of my usage. 

Can anyone advise me and give me a guide as to the best current deals available for electricity & gas? 

I do have a problem which the vendor’s estate agent is not helping me with. The vendor is refusing to give final readings or even the name of her suppliers, although I asked her estate agent to give me the details and they admit they have the request logged in their system but she has not cooperated and has moved out.

 I need to move quickly and am trying to keep the estate agent on side so I have no trouble moving in but this is causing me considerable worry.

Plus I need to arrange the utilities quickly so they are in place when I move in.

I would be grateful for any dual fuel recommendations so that I can act quickly and any advice on this situation. 

BarelySentientAI

You don't need to do anything with the utilities before you move in.  About the only useful thing is to find out who the existing suppliers are, which you can do by https://www.findmysupplier.energy/ for gas and https://www.enwl.co.uk/forms/who-is-my-supplier/ for electricity

Give each supplier an opening reading when you first move in, and then think about switching tariffs.  Most are very similar so it is not that urgent yet.  There's also no reason to expect that any fixed tariff available today will also be available then.

Ayr_Rage

OP has already posted this

 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6546053/completed-buying-vendor-refuses-to-give-final-utility-reading#latest

and received advice. 

Please merge here under ENERGY

sasparillo2

I think thanks to this forum I have resolved the  question of which companies were the suppliers. I still would be grateful for any recommendations regarding deals when I do not know my usage. I understand the advice to go with the current suppliers but what might be the best tariffs for someone with relatively low usage. I would be grateful for any help on this. 

spot1034

You will be on a version of the standard variable tariff when you sign up with the supplier presently registered with the property.  Prices are now certain to rise by somewhere in the order of 10% from October but it is still possible to get a fix at a decent discount to  this. The downside to doing that is that should prices fall later in the period of the fix (usually a year) you might end up paying more, but at the moment nobody is forecasting much of a drop. If you wish to, you can switch from the present supplier straight away and in that case you will only need to pay them for the brief period before the switch takes place.

Robin9

One other thing to do -  get into the habit of reading those bills - look out for the A C E or Smart letters. 

Read those meters (inc water if there is one) and keep your own records.   If Gas/Electricity are not Smart send the readings to the suppliers - even better (IMO) go Smart !

Ectophile

sasparillo2 said:

I think thanks to this forum I have resolved the  question of which companies were the suppliers. I still would be grateful for any recommendations regarding deals when I do not know my usage. I understand the advice to go with the current suppliers but what might be the best tariffs for someone with relatively low usage. I would be grateful for any help on this. 

Having signed up with whoever is the current supplier, you will be put on their standard variable tariff.  It will take a few days for the account to be set up, so you'll have time to think.

Doing nothing is a valid option.  All the companies that offered amazing fixed deals went bust.  So the fixed tariffs currently available are likely to be a bit more expensive than the variable ones at the monent, with the expectation that the variable ones will go up this winter.