How to start Council Tax, Gas, Electric, Water in new home

Sarahspangles

There is a lot of helpful information in this thread but you can also just move in and wait for the letters from the Council and various utility providers to ‘The New Occupier’, which are issued when the previous owners let them know final readings etc. You can cross-check those against your own meter readings. Sometimes preempting contact just confuses utility providers’ systems. Basically, if they can get it wrong, they will.

Enjoy your new house!

eddddy

As others say, you can wait until completion before dealing with council tax, gas, electric and water.

Perhaps the main exception is broadband. It often takes a couple of weeks to get that sorted, so maybe start talking to broadband suppliers a bit in advance. (But bear in mind that your completion date is only 'set in stone' after you exchange contracts.)


Or maybe you'd be happy to hotspot off your mobile for a couple of weeks (or permanently)...

...but I know somebody who planned to do that (for working from home, Zoom calls, etc), but then found that their new home had poor mobile coverage, and hotspotting was unreliable.

(Maybe you want to check out mobile signal strength anyway - so you know what to expect.)



Plus, as others say, if you're buying a house you'll probably have to arrange buildings insurance from exchange of contracts.

But if you're buying a flat, buildings insurance is usually (but not always) arranged by the freeholder - so you don't have to. Your solicitor will advise you about buildings insurance.

Bookworm105

Maahes said:

Do everything online after you get the keys. No need to do anything with utilities / council tax beforehand

you assume that "getting the keys" happens on the same day as legal completion
it might not!