My tenant changed the meter to Smart Meter.
It was normal meter and the supplier was Scottish Power. Tenant contacted Scottish Power and changed to Smart Meter.
I was wondering whether having a smart meter on a Rental Property is a good idea or not.
It’s the tenants utility contract, and you have no say or influence over their choices.
One exception is if they install a token meter, which can be a pain between tenancies, which you would be required to pay a fee to have the original standard meter reinstated. In this case, make the tenant aware of the cost to you to reinstate the meter originally provided under the TA, and that they will be responsible for that cost.
I see no detriment in having a smart meter installed. It also allows for reading without needing access to the property.
I have no idea, but I doubt they would be at liberty to exercise that sort of draconian resort without fair warning and repeated attempts at recovering payment for their utilities. I believe they generally turn up with a prepayment token meter, pre-loaded with the due debt.
I had a tenant who disappeared owing an electric bill of over £5,000, they broke into my flat to “purportedly” check the safety of the service before installing a pre-payment meter. Unfortunately, my agent didn’t pick up on it, before they came to do their deed.
A Smart Meter can be changed to a pay as you go remotely. So if you had a tenant that could not pay it might get switched. However it can also be switched back. Personally I wish my property had one as the Dumb PAYG meter is a real fafff.
Our smart metter had a long spell when it didn’t work. And it still plays now and then. Now that we moved to another company, it plays again. We can’t top it up. Luckily, they agreed not to disconnect us while they’re trying to investigate.