It’s always an exciting time moving into a student property but there are still lots of things to organise and you may be asking what a utilities service provider is and how you go about finding out!
When it comes to Glide, you can arrange – with just one phone call – connection to your electricity, gas, TV licence and water bills.
The alternative is to contact these utility providers separately and arrange for the connection to be made and agree whose name will go on the bill.
It’s important that these bills are paid on time because failure to do so could see the particular utility being disconnected; imagine trying to complete a thesis without power for your laptop.
However, with Glide not only are the utilities connected but the bills are shared equally between those living in the student house who then pay their own bills without having to worry if anybody else in the property has done so.
Speaking to several utility providers for their student house bills
For those who fancy the challenge of speaking to several utility providers for their student house bills, then you will have to research the market and contact several before deciding on which one you will use; this can be a time-consuming process.
You will also have to divide the work between everyone living in the property and make them responsible for finding the best student deals possible from utility providers.
If you do follow this route, it’s important that you simply don’t just renew the contract with the utility provider who is already supplying the property since if you switch to a new supplier you will probably make a big saving.
You should also look for dual fuel suppliers which means you can get your gas and electricity from the same supplier and have one bill to deal with.
Also, it is possible to fix your electricity and gas prices over the short-term to help prevent any worries that your bills will increase while living in your student property.
Your Glide online account
There’s also the potential to save money by opting to pay by direct debit since they won’t have to bill you and some will offer an online only account which could save even more money. It helps that your Glide online account makes dealing with everything a cinch too.
Finally, it’s important that when you move into your student property, that you check the meters for the gas and electricity carefully and notify the utility provider what your meter reading is.
This is crucial because you should only be paying for gas and electricity from the time you move into a property and the previous tenants are responsible for the bills up to that date.
There’s no point in not checking the meters and not informing the utility provider because you will be held liable for any outstanding amount left by previous tenants by not doing so.
While on the subject of meter readings, you should obviously take the meter readings when you all move out so there’s no disagreement about what the final bill should be and it wouldn’t hurt to check the meter every few months to ensure you are not overpaying on your electric and gas bills.
Having discussed the issue of organising utilities directly, it is possible to enjoy an increasingly popular offering from landlords which is to have an all-inclusive rent.
Landlords keen to attract students wanting an all-inclusive rent
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Indeed, Glide will offer the service to landlords who are keen to attract students wanting an all-inclusive rent and can deal with the utility provision so all of the bills will be covered.
Again, the attraction for all-inclusive rent is that the students don’t have to spend time finding a utility provider and then agreeing whose name should go on which bills. This then makes budgeting a lot easier since there will be no unexpected bills and everyone in the property will know when they need to pay their rent.
There are also bill splitting services aimed at students, for example from Glide, and this is also a popular choice.
One of the big attractions for a bill splitting service is that the student tenants will not have to keep track of who has paid which bill, how much is owed to fellow housemates and then struggle to get fellow tenants to pay up.
Indeed, the bill splitting service will deal with all of this since the students are billed directly and the Glide utility offering also includes broadband and phone connection along with electricity, gas, water and the TV licence.
There’s a lot to recommend a bill splitting service for student houses and if you want to know more about what a utility service provider is offering, then it’s time to contact the helpful Glide team.