UK Landlord Forum / Life

Just wondered what people thought of pre paid meters for gas and electric?, I have just brought a 1 bed starter home as a buy to let and as it will be mostly short term tenants thought this might be easier, but as I'm new to this I could be missing pitfalls.

They are more expensive to run, but have zero risk of the tenant running up a large debt.

Getting them put in and taken out is time consuming, and can depending on frequency be expensive.

My feeling, keep what you have got now, let the tenant decide, make sure that when someone leaves you make sure all utilities are up to date and paid before returning any deposit.

If a tenant wants to put one in, let them.

You can do what you like (mine were already pre paid meters) but the they are the tenants meters so can be requested by them to be changed either way anyway.  I'm glad my T has decided to keep them installed though as it will alleviate any headaches in the future.  If I was renting a property though I'd be straight on to the elec co to get them changed.

Thanks you, might stay with what I have for a while then, and review it again later.

I personally don't like the prepaid meters. From my experience, most people prefer the regular billing system because it saves them from having to continually top up.

There was a similar thread to this before where it was discussed: https://www.landlordforumproject.co.uk/landlord-advice-help/prepayment-meters/