How can I switch from a business / commercial electricity supply to a domestic?

Erm… I don’t actually. But you’re in luck. @M.isterW can I borrow your knowledge?

Hi everyone,

Apologies for a long post. We have recently received a bill from Opus for over £800 for electricity only for about 2 months for a studio flat which was empty for almost a month and has a gas heating. They charge between £2.5-£4 for standing charge per day and £0.68 per kwh for deemed out of contract bussiness rates which is extremely high and causes me a huge headache.

Anyway, we purchased the property at the end of November 2022. It is a house that was split into 4 studio flats that my husband is renovating. The property was empty for over a year. Usually I look after bills and paperwork but I had serious health issues in December and I left it until Jan to switch to a new supplier. I wasn't aware that the property has bussiness supply and I saw a bill from Edf on one of the flats so assumed they supply other flats as well and currently the rates are pretty much the same for all suppliers so thought it wouldn't matter. The edf bill later appeared to had a wrong address and meant to be for our neighbour. 

In January I emailed Opus to ask if they supply energy. I had no reply for several days so I called and they said it is commercial supply as the previous owner was a Housing Association so they had a bussiness account with them. However, they said they cannot offer a contract to us as the property has domestic meters so we now have to pay their out of contract rates and it would be better to switch to a domestic supplier. I asked how much were the out of contract rates and they said they will advise once the accounts are switched to our names which can take up to 10 working days. But I insisted to switch before feeling they are not really honest and we did the switch in the middle of January for 3 flats and 20th for one flat which the tenants did. Opus also responded to my email asking to switch accounts to our names and I said we had already dine it over the phone. I asked again what were their out of contract rates if we have to pay to them as I saw their rates on their website were crazy and they replied to give meter readings and move in date to a new supplier and that we will not have a bill from them.

Yesterday they sent us a letter advising about their oit of contract rates and to contact their sales team in order to get better rates. And today we received a bill for over £800 based on estimates not meter readings. Also, the meter number actually relates to another flat, according to what is written on the meter and we checked which meter is moving when the heating is on. To make it more confusing, the tenants who occupy that flat emailed Opus some time ago and they were advised Opus did not supply energy to that address. What is more, if they send us a bill for similar amount for 3 other flats then it would really kill me. The usage is minimal but the standing charge is outrgeous.

I emailed Opus saying they agreed not to charge us since the property is domestic and should never had a bussiness supply which we did not agree to. They responded that the new supplier only contacted them on the 20th and so before that we have to pay to them.

Accidentally Opus also emailed me instead of the previous owner asking for meter readings as they lost the track for over a year and have no accurate meter readings. There are no smart meters there.

What can we do, is there a chance we can pay the new domestic supplier from the move in date. Or can we challenge the bill somehow.

Another question, one of the meters is not moving at all, how would they charge us for usage on that and how to identify which meter belongs to which flat. They seem to have different data to what is written on the meter.

If someone could help it would be much appreciated.

sounds to me that the commercial was connected to the domestic supply.

Hey @Gaudencja,

I’m really sorry to hear this, 

That sounds like a really complex, frustrating issue. My suggestion would be to speak to Citizens Advice, they may be able to offer some helpful advice in this case.

Keep us posted with how you get on. 

In your situation i think I would phone one of the Energy suppliers that have both domestic and business customers and see what they can offer. 

Octopus Energy are well respected and i think get good feedback for the time it takes to get through on the phones when so many suppliers are busy at the moment. 

i have a domestic Ovo supplied meter in the house and a  business SSE one with three phase in the detached garage, used very little but expensive.  There is no business use and I've never used three phase. It was for a pottery hobby of a previous owner.  I was told when I moved in 20 years ago the two could be merged but didn't bother.  How do I get to a single domestic supply?  The meters are in different buildings.  SSE saying not possible.

Hey @DrDR ,

I think the best solution in this case would be to ask the current supplier (SSE’s business side of things) to convert the supply to a Domestic supply and then move it to a Domestic supplier like OVO. It shouldn’t be too difficult to do.

Alternatively, switch the business supply to someone who offers both sides and get them to swap it to a Domestic supply. E.On Next has previously confirmed on the OVO Forum that they’re capable of doing this even if you don’t want to stay with them after the swap as you’ll then be able to stick or switch to any Domestic supplier of your choosing.

Their Community Manager is effectively a friend of the forum so we’re able to get her advice on some of these things.

I can’t think of an easy way to merge both supplies into one without some serious rewiring work, so it’s probably cheaper and easier to keep them as two separate supplies.

Hope this helps.

If you want a single supply you need to have one of them disconnected. The obvious one to disconnect is the garage.

If you still need electricity in the garage you will need to run a cable from your house and have an electrician connect it to the consumer units at each end. How difficult it is depends on how far the garage is from the house.

We used to have a business and so all my meters are commercial. Should I change to a domestic meter or will it make it more expensive?

Hi @NatS , I’m fairly sure that OVO don’t offer commercial contracts. That might be a restriction. 
As to the balance between domestic and commercial, it probably depends on your consumption