One of our new tenants last month unfortunately became the unfortunate victim of the non competitive nature of Australian gas companies.
We normally use a utilities company to connect all utilities for our tenants - this tenant refused the service and went directly to the retailer herself - origin energy.
The previous tenants were with simply energy who refused to give up their billing rights to origin and did not allow a gas connection for 2 weeks.
We got one of our utilities companies involved as it was impossible for any one other than the tenant to speak to any of the gas companies. To cut a long story short, after much frustration the case was escalated to a gas ombudsman and it was finally sorted. The tenant had no gas connected for 2 weeks as simply energy was trying to force a connection with that company completely dismissing the tenants choice to go with a different company. Just crazy and this could create tenant compensation for landlords by way of free rent if not dealt with adequately.
Just a heads up that this could happen.
We normally use a utilities company to connect all utilities for our tenants - this tenant refused the service and went directly to the retailer herself - origin energy.
The previous tenants were with simply energy who refused to give up their billing rights to origin and did not allow a gas connection for 2 weeks.
We got one of our utilities companies involved as it was impossible for any one other than the tenant to speak to any of the gas companies. To cut a long story short, after much frustration the case was escalated to a gas ombudsman and it was finally sorted. The tenant had no gas connected for 2 weeks as simply energy was trying to force a connection with that company completely dismissing the tenants choice to go with a different company. Just crazy and this could create tenant compensation for landlords by way of free rent if not dealt with adequately.
Just a heads up that this could happen.