Tenant wants to install PrePay Power meter. Good idea or bad idea for me?

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Ger1966

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Hi all,

I have new tenants moving into a property. The property has the "standard" analogue meter installed and the new tenants have asked about getting a PrePay Power meter installed. It seems that PrePay Power are offering free meter installation as well as €100 credit to the account. I don't have any problem with this, but as a landlord, is there anything that I should be aware of?

By getting a pre-pay meter installed, does this "lock" the property into pre-pay forever? If it doesn't lock me in, what's involved in moving back to "normal" billing with ESB / Bord Gais? Would there be a cost to revert to this?

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Generally the tenant has to sign up for a year - they can disconnect before that time but there is a fee. You should put in the lease with your tenant that they will have the meter disconnected at the end of the tenancy . It does not lock you into anything. Some people find pay as you go handy as there is no big bill but the electricity is generally more expensive.
 
It locks you into them for a minimum contract period, after that, to move back to traditional metering will likely incur extra charges.

Just make sure your tenants are fully aware that the unit cost of their electricity will be ~30% more expensive than some of the other suppliers.
 
Leo said:
to move back to traditional metering will likely incur extra charges
Click to expand...
I looked into this before when looking at buying a house that had one installed.

My understanding is that you apply to switch, and once the account is up to date they'll issue a code that overrides the meter. There are likely charges (and some repair work!) to physically remove the prepay meter.
 
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RedOnion said:
My understanding is that you apply to switch, and once the account is up to date they'll issue a code that overrides the meter. There are likely charges (and some repair work!) to physically remove the prepay meter.
Click to expand...

I just looked up the [broken link removed] and [broken link removed], looks like no charge for removal once the initial contract period is over.
 
Thanks for correction @Leo
The meter was the least of my worries with that house, so ended up not buying it.
 
For natural gas there is a fee of €199 charged by Bord Gáis Networks to move from a prepay meter to a bill meter.

For electricity there isn't usually a charge. I moved a Prepaypower meter to a bill with Bord Gáis electricity without charge recently. I just had to ring Prepaypower and obtain a code from them.
 
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