Hi ​@Andrew Burton ,

Online Services such as MyOVO are NOT available for PAYG Customers - those tools only work for Pay Monthly. Please use https://ovoenergypayments.paypoint.com and the OVO Energy Top-Up app instead.

If you desire having an online account, you’ll need to call 0330 175 9669 and ask to be migrated to Pay Monthly.

That's interesting. Any idea how those in a shared rental property with a smart meter in prepayment mode would manage. Wouldnt they each have to have an online account to be able to remotely top up the meter when it was their turn to top it up?

Not recommended TBH, you’ll just cause yourselves more problems.

Generally, you’re probably better off migrating to Pay Monthly, putting ONE person in charge of the account and have them pay the bills to the supplier. How you split things up beyond that is a matter you’ll need to discuss between yourselves. Only the named person should have access to the online account - no-one else.

If you REALLY want to, you can add the others as Financially Liable Secondary Contacts on the account, but doing so means OVO can chase ALL OF YOU if you fail to pay. We - as the OVO Forum - do not recommend this setup however.

Up to you.

Shouldn’t this be possible, and probably workable, in just the same way as for a poster we saw recently who wanted his mother to be able to top up her meter and see her balance while she was away from home? I don’t suppose OVO cares who pays, so long as somebody does. The question of who pays if a debt is incurred can always arise, so that’s the situation to be decided (in advance, of course) between housemates. It’s not clear from your response whether anyone (e.g. housemates) can set up a PayPoint account with the same PAN, so they could all top up whenever and indeed see what the balance is. 

How do I migrate to a 'pay monthly'?

The property just has an older prepayment meter in (one that is topped up via a plug-in USB stick).  Do I just ask OVO to change the meter to a credit meter.

If it’s an old (AKA Traditional) PAYG meter then yes it will need to be replaced with a new Smart Meter.
It’s probably nearing it’s expiry date and so time that it was replaced anyway.

(New smart meters can be easily changed between PAYG and pay monthly without having to physically change the meter, it can be done remotely by sending the meter a signal with a set of commands).

This is a year old but the advice was updated last month:
 

Ok,

I can see that in an empty rental property with a prepayment meter the landlord is always the account holder, but when a tenant moves in, who is the account holder then. E g who can request to have a pay monthly account.

Upon moving in, the TENANT becomes responsible and must create an account. This then allows them to migrate to Pay Monthly if they wish 

Thanks

So if tenants on a credit meter get in arrears and a utility company puts in a credit meter with the tenants still living there, then the prepayment meter account is in the tenants name. Yes?

It's in your name once you create the account 

I can see a difficulty here as I don't see that many sharers in a house will feel it is necessary to create an account, surely the criteria for the account  is 'who is using the electricity', so the tenants will have an account by default.

This is relevant to my situation because the landlord says previously SSE passed the debt from the previous tenants paymeter onto him and they won't let him put a credit meter/pay monthly meter in the property until he pays the tenants debt off (he sats its many thousands of pounds)

As I said though, you MUST create a new account when you move in, because you became responsible for the supply as soon as you moved in. Please call 0330 175 9669 immediately if you haven’t already done so. Once you do, you’ll be able to have a credit meter.

The existing debt isn’t your problem right now - but it will be if you don’t set up your own account. That debt is for your landlord to deal with between himself and the previous tenant(s).

Ok, I see where you are coming from but without a firm commitment from OVO I cannot trust that OVO will put a credit meter in.Once I have signed a tenancy agreement I could be stuck with a top-up meter. Professional renters dont like having top-up meters, they would rather move into a house that already has a credit meter.

You say the previous debt is between the landlord and the tenants, I don't think that is right. Surely the previous debt is between SSE and the tenants.

Usually, yes it would be between that tenant/customer and the supplier. However, your landlord got hit with the debt so his options are to clear it himself or to provide OVO with details of where said tenant(s) ran off to in order to re-direct the debt collection. It is not for you to repay that debt.

Caveat: If your landlord named himself as the account holder the entire time, then he has no choice but to cough up the repayments for that debt out of his own pocket and pursue the tenants himself afterwards. This is EXACTLY why we do not recommend Landlords attempt to manage energy supplies/accounts on behalf of tenants or use sub-metering - it’s much easier for everyone to just let the tenants deal with the supplier directly and for the landlord to completely release their grip on the whole thing (except when between tenants where they are responsible for the void period).

As I said, once YOU take control of the supply by creating your own account, it starts afresh and you can do whatever you want with it with a fresh zero balance. FWIW, yes that does also include moving to Pay Monthly and having a Credit Meter put in if you so wish - or more likely a Smart Meter that’ll run in Credit Mode.

The word of a Forum Volunteer here is as close to OVO’s promise as you can expect via the Forum. I’m one of the UK’s most experienced Forum Volunteers in this field - my word is enough for that purpose. Heck, if you can prove me wrong, I’ll pay your bill for a year. How’s that for a commitment?

IIRC the Paypoint system isn’t designed to have multiple folks creating accounts and hooking up the same PANs across them. Guest Mode kinda works for that, but the experience sucks if you try to do it long-term. That other user wanted to do it for a few days which isn’t quite so bad and Guest Mode does cater for that, but it’s not the way to do it long-term. I can’t promise what’ll happen if you hook up three separate Paypoint accounts to one PAN, but be prepared for it all to go kaboom and self-destruct just in case.

I’d argue it’s better to just have one person be responsible for the whole thing. One account, one button, one finger means you know exactly who to ask if something goes wrong.

With the talk of 'sharing tenants', and of the landlord being responsible for a previous debt, then it sounds to me that ​@Andrew Burton  may be talking about a HMO  (House in Multiple Occupation) where the utiltiy supplies are in the Landlords name.

In which case the landlord is responsible for paying the bills, and should ask/require the tenants to pay a share.
Or the LL could make the rent ‘all inclusive’, - however many landlords took a big hit on those when energy prices shot up and they couldn’t increase the all inclusive rent to cover it.
(Student lettings had a big problem with that at the time).

Alternatively the supply should be in the name of one of the tenents, who then pays the bill and collects a share from the other tenants.

The point is that whoever has their name on the account is responsible for paying it, and then collecting a proportion for the other tenants.

These HMO shared utility meter situations can always be, and often are, messy.
You tend to get arguments about how much each tenants share should be, who used how much, what should happen if there is an empty room/flat for a while, etc.etc.

Landlords get into this mess when they split an older property into shared flats/rooms but don't want to pay the expense of having a seperate supply and meter installed for each flat.

PS. I have been there in a HMO myself in the past and it can work as long as all the tenants behave reasonably.
In that case we had pay monthly electricity and a PAYG gas meter.
I put both bills in my name, paid them, and charged the other tenants a set amount, which I revised every 3-months according to the bills just received.
I let them have a copy of the bills with a breakdown of how much I wanted off them each week for the next 3-months.
It's not ideal because of seasonal variations, meaning that one quarter I would lose out then the next I would win it back. But as we were all there long term it worked to our satisfaction.
It can get really messy if/when there are people moving in/out all the time.

I find your experience very useful, it looks like it is helping me from getting in a pickle.

But just thinking of the possible problems of being in a shared house with a prepayment meter. I would be the account holder and would need the co-operation of whoever the other housemates are to pay their share of the electricity to me, ideally in advance of me topping up.

But there is no guaratee the other housemates will co-operate they may be made redundant or be poor at managing their money.

If they dont, or cant pay then my only option would be just carry on topping up the meter myself or not topping up the meter up until everybody has paid. If the electricity is off it means no working fridge or freezer (food goes off) or no lights (tripping hazards or worse still use of candles with increase risk of fire), phones cannot be charged, which is REALLY SERIOUS.

I'm thinking a shared house can not really function with a prepayment meter, even if it is a smart model. It seems far better to have a credit meter with all tenants registered with OVO and OVO manage collecting the payments, (after all it is OVO's electricty being used, not mine). OVO can then use their resources to chase up any tenants who don't pay their share. Do you think OVO will do this?

Would you want to be the first to move into a shared house that has a with a top-up meter in?

What would you do in my situation?

I’m afraid only one supply account can be active per supply at any given time. You can’t have it split up between multiple people - the closest you can do is add the others as authorised contacts who can chip in on your Pay Monthly account, but ultimately, only one person can be the “account owner” regardless of PAYG or PAYM. You must decide between yourselves as to who you all trust the most to take on that role.

That person will pay OVO directly - everyone else will have to pay that person back for their share. How you do that is a matter between yourselves as neither myself nor OVO can get involved there.

No - a supplier will not split a billing like that, why should they?

There is one meter and the supplier charges/bills for the usage clocked up by that meter (and a daily standing charge).

It is not the suppliers job to mediate arguments between sharing tenants.

Ideally the landlord should pay to have a seperate meter fitted for each flat/room that they rent out, but many don’t want to pay the cost of doing that.

Many people do live in such HMO’s, usually because they can’t find anywhere else in their price range.
It can work well, but as noted it can also get messy living like that, it only takes one bad sharer in a property to mess things up for everyone else.

Mine was a decent arrangement, with 3 of us sharing the property for a number of years, but TBH as soon as I could move into a place of my own I did so.

One for Nukecad.

It is a HMO but has only one electric meter.

You are spot on. The landlord said he got stung when he did 'all inclusive', he had to keep paying the bills as they were in his name and ended making a loss for 9 months.

He says I should move in, register with OVO, get OVO to remove the top-up and fit a credit meter. Then, when new tenants move in I give OVO a meter reading and OVO add each new tenant to the bill when they move in. Each tenant agrees with OVO to pay 25% of each electric bills. If one tenant doesn't pay then OVO chases them for the outstanding balance.

If OVO don't do shared bills in HMO's then I could shop around to find another supplier who does. Does anybody know if OVO do shared bills for HMO's?

There are a total of ZERO suppliers on the market who cater for split-billing in HMOs outside of landlord sub-metering stuff. If there were, pretty much all the Forum Volunteers here would know about it and we’d have pointed you at one.

You can ask all the energy suppliers in the UK and they’ll all tell you what myself and Nukecad are saying - the arrangement you want is not supported.

You MUST handle any bill-splits between yourself and the other tenants. OVO cannot get involved nor assist you with that. Whoever pays the bill to OVO is the one who’ll have to chase the other tenants and get them to cough up their share to that person.

Likewise, if OVO doesn’t get paid, then OVO will EXCLUSIVELY chase after the named account holder only. OVO doesn’t care about whether you have arrangements with anyone else - legally they can’t chase anyone other than the named account holder.

Even with financially liable Secondary Contacts, the account owner remains responsible for absolutely everything on the account - including paying the FULL bill to OVO. You can’t have a bazillion Secondary Contacts either - IIRC the limit is something like one account owner and ONE Secondary Contact.

One Account. One Meter. One Bill. One Human. That’s just how it works.

Ok, I don't disagree with you on that point.

Maybe there is a gap in the market for  an enterprising utility supplier to work out and manage an effective system for sharing the bills for HMO's with only one main meter.

Octopus seem like an enterprising set-up that would be worth checking with.

I'm sure I read something that said those using electricity are the ones liable to pay it. How can a landlord of an HMO be liable if the landlord is not using the supply. If the landlord stop paying the bills in an HMO who does the utility company chase?

Such a setup already exists - it’s called Landlord Sub-Metering and has existed for decades. No energy supplier is likely to ever make that a “product” they offer as it’s too messy. Per the Electricity Act 1989 and Gas Act 1986, the Supplier is NOT responsible for anything beyond the Supply Meter they put in. So you’d literally have to change 40 year old laws if you wanted to start up such an enterprise. Good luck with that.

The closest you can do is a “Reseller” type arrangement which relies on Sub-Metering i.e. multiple Meters that exist downstream of the Main Supply Meter. That space is already pretty crowded…

The other option is that the Landlord does a Building Network Operator setup (DNO’s can advise on this!) so that every tenant gets their own Supply Meter, their own Service Fuse and their own Supply Account with the ability to individually and independently switch suppliers and payment methods in a way that affects just that tenant. It’s expensive to install, but guarantees that everyone gets to use the full 80-100A capacity without the risk of overloading one supply point because each supply point would have its own 80-100A allowance directly from the street.

Ultimately, it’d be basically impossible to make it fair on everyone with just one main meter. That’s just asking for trouble and I can’t see it ever working out. There’s a reason why no-one has developed such a setup for HMOs!

If the Landlord is the named account holder of the upstream supply account and fails to pay his bills, then the energy supplier will chase the Landlord rather than the tenants because he is the one responsible for the supply - but any Disconnection would affect ALL tenants as well.

It is precisely why “All Bills Included” on rent agreements is a terrible arrangement - because ultimately it screws over the Landlord if the tenants gorge on free zappy juice.

In the end it’s the landlord who should be making seperate metering arrangements.

Of course many don’t want the cost of doing that and so either do ‘all inclusive’ which as we have seen can have it’s own problem if prices rocket up, or rely on often unsatisfactory bill sharing arrangements between tenants.

Look on any Landlord/Tenant forum and you will find discussions on utility bills in HMO’s, they have been going round and round covering the same points and options for years.

Landlord sub-metering in HMOs is a thing, and there have been some newer schemes on the market to make it easier for both landlords and tenants.

But they are not the electricity suppliers, they are 3rd party metering systems where the tenant tops up with the metering company who then passes it on to the LL, the LL pays the supplier.
There is still an initial cost, and ongoing cost to the landlord for the sub-metering, the actual meters, admin fees, etc. (which would no doubt be recouped by a higher rent).

Here are just a couple of examples, maybe point your (prospective?) LL to them?
Other companies are available that do similar sub-metering:
https://metroprepaid.co.uk/about/blog/how-does-an-electric-sub-meter-work/
https://landlordmetering.com/

In my opinion it should be made compulsory for HMOs to have seperate meters or sub-meters for each tenant.
But with the current housing shortage the government are wary of legislating something which would undoubtedly make many HMO landlords sell up and leave the market.

I’m fairly sure they don’t.

OVO have a subsidiary that helps those moving in to a new home get all the paperwork sorted out in one fell swoop for free, but I don’t think their service stretches to bill management of the sort you’re looking for. You might ask them: Tili - Your home move assistant

Otherwise, there are several companies that will do the necessary at a price. I’ve seen a few scary anecdotes about companies like this that would make me think twice - and do lots of research - before signing up with any of them. This is what Microsoft’s Copilot found when I asked: