Paying Utility Bills by Monthly Direct Debit

Do they still send you bills if you do monthly direct debit?  I ask because we will need some for my ILR. 

We have our Water on MDD and still get our statements every 6 months. So yeah you still get statements.

Yes, but it depends on the company how often they send them. I get one every 6 months, with a previous company I got them quarterly. They still need to send you bills to make sure that the readings are correct and if you have to make any adjustments. For example, on my last electric bill it turns out they actually owe me money, while on the gas we owe them a bit. In both cases, however, it doesn't change our monthly payments, they just get carried over as a credit and a debit because it will work out over the next few months.

We set ours up for a new home and have had no problems. As stated before its based on average of household size.
Other thing i would suggest is setting up a joint account for household dd's to go out of.  As long as you have money in the account for each month and no dd's are refused to be paid by the bank for lack of funds it'll help your credit out too.

Erm, who are you directing this to?


Only because I already have good credit, having living in the UK for almost five years.

Regarding bills, the companies I know of ask you to sign up for "paperless billing".  I can print out bills as PDF files, but I don't think those would be acceptable to the Home Office (although I'm not an immigration expert).

Regarding bills, the companies I know of ask you to sign up for "paperless billing".  I can print out bills as PDF files, but I don't think those would be acceptable to the Home Office (although I'm not an immigration expert).

You can do MDD without going paperless (we have this with Severn Trent - water)...and you're right, printed bills off the internet are not acceptable by the Home Office. You need to have the statements that are mailed to you at the end of each billing cycle.

That's interesting, because I printed off my pdf bills as one of my items when I applied for FLR(M) in person and they took it.

That's interesting, because I printed off my pdf bills as one of my items when I applied for FLR(M) in person and they took it.

Because for an FLR(M) proof of residence is not required.

For ILR proof of residence & address covering the residencey period is a requirement.

We definitely were, too.  Until reading this thread, I thought it was possible to be billed based on the actual reading of the previous month.  Oops!

That is what I was concermed about.

Suppose, for example, you move into a home with bad insulation and an inefficient washer and fridge which waste loads of energy - so your first bills are enormous - and then set up a direct debit.

Then after a few months, you fix everything so you are saving much more energy.  Do you still get billed based on the old usage?

Especially if it is a rented home, so the people who were living at the house before were using the inefficient old washer, fridge, etc., so the rates at that house have been high for a long time.

How many months before they update your rates to reflect your lower energy usage?

The extra fee that I pay for quarterly paper billing is only a few quid a month, not a substantial savings if I change to monthly.

We definitely were, too.  Until reading this thread, I thought it was possible to be billed based on the actual reading of the previous month.  Oops!

YOu can.  I do MDD with British Gas and we text our reading in each month.

Because for an FLR(M) proof of residence is not required.

For ILR proof of residence & address covering the residencey period is a requirement.

No, because I was applying for FLR(M) unmarried partners, so it WAS one of my proofs of living together 2 years.

Suppose, for example, you move into a home with bad insulation and an inefficient washer and fridge which waste loads of energy - so your first bills are enormous - and then set up a direct debit.

Then after a few months, you fix everything so you are saving much more energy.  Do you still get billed based on the old usage?

Especially if it is a rented home, so the people who were living at the house before were using the inefficient old washer, fridge, etc., so the rates at that house have been high for a long time.

How many months before they update your rates to reflect your lower energy usage?

sweetpeach, you can set your own amount that you want to pay each month, so if you update your home you just have to say to them, 'We've made everything more energy efficient, so we'd like to start with this payment amount,' and they'll set it at what you want. When we switched to our current company they gave us a suggestions and I said I'd like to try this instead, and they let me do it. As long as you keep up with your meter readings and keep an eye on it you'll be fine.

On thing I'd say about DD is that the main advantage is convenience, knowing a small, fixed, amount goes out each month rather than dealing with larger quarterly bill; as sweetpeach says the monetary savings are only token.

It sounds like sweetpeach really doesn't really like the idea of direct debit and if it's going to cause her worry or look for problems then them main advantage disappears.  If you're happy paying monthly and don't really want to change to DD then why do it?

I'm not paying monthly, I'm paying quarterly. I don't care about whether the money is dd; I care about the frequency.

It would be easier to handle expenses with monthly bills.

sweetpeach, you can set your own amount that you want to pay each month, so if you update your home you just have to say to them, 'We've made everything more energy efficient, so we'd like to start with this payment amount,' and they'll set it at what you want. When we switched to our current company they gave us a suggestions and I said I'd like to try this instead, and they let me do it. As long as you keep up with your meter readings and keep an eye on it you'll be fine.

Thanks. That's what I wanted to know.

No, because I was applying for FLR(M) unmarried partners, so it WAS one of my proofs of living together 2 years.

The guidance says the documents must be 'original' documents...I guess it comes down to if you believe that a document printed off the internet can be an 'original' document. For me and my application I would hate to say that it was and then have it refused for providing internet documents. So I guess it boils down to that your interpretation of 'original' is different from mine. Always best to err on the side of caution.

I'm not saying everyone should do it, just that it's interesting that they took it. I provided well over the 6 pieces required, and when the person at the desk was picking out documents he specifically took that bill. I wouldn't have depended on it if I only had exactly 6 items.

sweetpeach - the point is that even if you over-pay a little bit on the monthly DD amount, it all evens out eventually.  So let's say you set your amount for the UK average and then make all these improvements, causing you to use less fuel.  So when the next bill after the improvements comes, you've probably overpaid somewhat, but all this does is put your account in credit and likely trigger a small, automatic reduction in your monthly DD amount.  Or if you want to keep your acct in credit for periods of increased usage (let's say winter is coming up), you can leave the DD amount as-is and then you've got a cushion for when cold weather comes.

Does that make more sense?  I think energy companies differ slightly - if we underpay, all Scottish Power do is raise your monthly DD amount to cover the amount of "debt" on your acct.  I think other companies may actually chase for a one-off top-up payment instead.  For instance, our DD was obviously slightly too low to cover the really cold winter we just had, so our monthly bill was raised £13/month to cover the deficit our acct is sitting at.  But after next quarter, this'll prolly be recovered and our energy use will decrease with the coming spring/summer, so the DD amt will fall slightly.  It's all automated triggers with ScottishPower, but other companies may not change your DD so often - ours is adjusted ever quarter, but not sure if htat's normal or not.