Putting the Energy Account in Your Name After a Death

When the person who paid the bills dies, the gas and electricity account does not simply stop. The supply keeps running, the meter keeps counting, and the bill keeps building — so one of the early jobs is to change the gas and electricity account into the name of whoever is now living in or looking after the home. It is a small piece of admin next to everything else, but doing it in the right order saves you from a tangle of closing bills, frozen direct debits and refunds sent to an account nobody can reach.

The mechanics are the same whichever supplier it is. You tell the bereavement team the person has died, you give a meter reading taken as close to the date of death as you can, and the old account is closed and billed up to that reading. A new account then opens in your name from that day forward. What varies is the fiddly bit around the edges: what happens to a credit balance, whether there is a debt to settle, and what to do with a smart meter or a prepayment key.

None of it needs to be rushed in the first week. But two things are worth doing sooner rather than later — telling the supplier, so the account stops being billed to a dead person, and making sure the supply itself is not cut off in a home that still needs heating, especially if it is on a prepayment meter that can simply run out.

The first call: the supplier's bereavement team

Every major supplier has a dedicated bereavement team, and it is a different queue from ordinary customer service. It is worth finding the right number rather than working through the general menu, because the bereavement team can do things the standard line cannot — freeze chasing letters, stop a direct debit cleanly, hold the account while probate is sorted, and open the new account without treating you as a brand-new customer who has to pass a credit check.

When you call, have to hand the deceased's name and address, the account number if you can find it, the date of death, and a meter reading. If you do not know who the supplier even is, that is a common starting point rather than a failure. The quickest route is usually the bank statements, where the direct debit will name the company; the same trawl through statements that helps you find bank accounts nobody knew about after a death will usually surface the energy supplier too. If the bills came by email rather than post, the login and the statements may be sitting in the deceased's inbox, which raises its own problem — whether a provider will let an executor read the emails is rarely as simple as it sounds.

Ask the team to confirm, in writing or by email, three things: that the old account is closed to the date of death, the closing balance, and the details of the new account in your name. A phone call alone leaves you nothing to point to when a letter arrives three months later addressed to someone who has died.

Why the reading on the day matters

The single most useful thing you can do is take a meter reading, and photograph it, on the day you notify the supplier — ideally dated to the death itself. That reading is the line that divides the two accounts. Everything before it is billed to the estate; everything after it is billed to you.

If you cannot give a reading, the supplier will estimate one, and an estimate cuts both ways. It can overcharge the estate, leaving you to reclaim the difference from a company that has already closed the account. Or it can undercharge, so a shortfall surfaces later and becomes one more thing to sort. A photographed reading with a date on it settles the argument before it starts. On a smart meter the supplier can often pull the reading remotely, but it is still worth taking your own so you are not relying on their record alone.

For a home with both gas and electricity, take both. For an Economy 7 or two-rate meter, take both the day and night registers. It feels like overkill in the moment. It is the difference between a clean closing bill and a drawn-out correction later.

What happens to a credit balance

Many accounts, especially those paid by monthly direct debit, are sitting in credit — the household has been paying a level amount all year and has built up a cushion going into winter, or the estimated usage was set too high. That credit belongs to the estate.

Once the account is closed and the final bill produced, the supplier refunds the credit. The important detail is where it goes. Suppliers will usually pay it to the estate, which in practice means to the executor or administrator, on sight of the death certificate and proof of who is entitled to deal with things. They will not simply keep paying it into the deceased's own bank account, which is frozen the moment the bank is told of the death. So make sure the refund is directed somewhere it can actually be received, and record the amount, because it is an asset of the estate like any other and belongs in the estate accounts.

Do not let a credit balance drift. It is common for a modest refund to sit unclaimed for months because everyone assumed someone else had dealt with it. If you are trying to build a full picture of what the person left behind, the energy credit sits alongside the other small sums — the same diligence you would apply to finding out whether there was a life policy is worth applying to the handful of refunds and balances scattered across utilities and subscriptions.

When the closing balance is in arrears

The other way round, the final bill may show money owed. This is where families most often panic, and usually needlessly. A closing balance in arrears on a sole-name energy account is a debt of the estate. It is paid from the deceased's money, before anything is distributed to beneficiaries — it is not a bill that lands on a relative personally simply because they made the phone call or because they live in the house now.

There are two exceptions worth being clear about. First, if the account was in joint names, the survivor is liable for it in the ordinary way, exactly as with other joint borrowing. Second, if you keep using the supply after the death without opening a new account in your name, the usage from the date of death onwards is genuinely yours — which is the whole reason for taking that reading and opening the new account promptly.

An energy arrears balance is treated like the estate's other everyday debts. It ranks alongside things such as a catalogue account debt or a sole current account left overdrawn: the estate settles what it can from the assets available, in the proper order. If the estate turns out to owe more than it holds, that is a genuinely different situation — an insolvent estate has its own rules about who gets paid and in what order, and it is worth understanding how an insolvency administration order works after a death before paying any one creditor ahead of the others.

Smart meters and prepayment meters

A standard credit meter is the easy case: read it, close the account, open a new one. The two meter types that need more care are smart meters and prepayment meters.

With a smart meter, the account change usually goes smoothly, but the meter can occasionally lose its smart function and revert to sending estimated bills when the account switches over or if you later change supplier. It is not lost data, just a setting that sometimes needs re-establishing. Take manual readings in the meantime so the billing stays honest, and ask the new supplier to confirm the meter is communicating again.

Prepayment meters are the ones that will not wait for you. The supply is only on while there is credit on the key, card or app, and the meter does not know or care that the account holder has died. If nobody tops it up, the gas and electricity go off — which in the depths of winter, in a house that may still be lived in, is a real problem rather than a paperwork one. Keep topping up the existing key or card while you sort the account change. Where there is debt being recovered through the meter, a proportion of every top-up goes to the arrears rather than to supply, which can make the credit vanish faster than expected; the bereavement team can pause or adjust that recovery. Ask them to. If the household is struggling, ask about the supplier's Priority Services Register, a free scheme that gives extra help to people in vulnerable circumstances, including recently bereaved households.

Switching supplier, and the help worth asking for

You do not have to stay with the same supplier — once the account is in your name you can switch like any other customer. In practice it is almost always simpler to take the account over first and switch afterwards, rather than trying to do both at once through a bereavement team that is set up for the handover, not the tariff shopping.

One thing that can trip up a switch: where a closing balance is still outstanding, some suppliers will block a move until it is settled. If you are planning to change supplier, clear the final bill first so you are not caught between the two companies. And if the property is going to stand empty during probate rather than be lived in, tell the supplier that too — an empty home uses little, but the standing charge keeps running whether anyone is there or not, so it is better to have the account in the right name and the usage understood than to leave it drifting under a dead person's name for months.

If the person who died was the one who quietly ran all of this — the bills, the meter readings, the annual switch — you may be discovering how much invisible admin one household runs on. The rest of it is set out in our guide to bereavement admin, assets and contracts, which covers the bank accounts, subscriptions and other bills in the same weeks.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

For gas and electricity, Scotland sits inside the same Great Britain energy market as England and Wales, regulated by Ofgem, so the suppliers and the process are the same. What differs in Scotland is the wider estate machinery around it — the authority to deal with the estate comes through confirmation rather than a grant of probate — but the energy account handover itself works identically.

Northern Ireland is genuinely different. It has its own energy market with its own regulator, and the suppliers are not the GB household names — electricity and gas there come from companies serving Northern Ireland specifically. Prepayment, often called a Keypad meter, is far more common than in the rest of the UK, so the prepayment points above matter more there. The principle is unchanged — read the meter, notify the supplier, settle the estate's balance — but you will be dealing with a Northern Ireland supplier and, potentially, a home where gas is not connected at all.

Where life cover fits into all of this

Changing the energy account is one line on a long list, and on its own it is manageable. What makes the whole list heavy is when the household income has gone at the same time as the person, and every closing bill has to be met from an estate that is frozen while probate grinds on. That is the gap life cover is meant to close — and for ongoing costs like gas and electricity, a policy that pays a regular monthly income rather than a single lump sum is designed to keep exactly these bills running for the family left behind.

If sorting out someone else's bills has made you think about your own household, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker size the cover against your actual outgoings. What it pays and whether an insurer offers cover always depend on the individual and on underwriting, but the point of arranging it now is that your family never has to meet the winter's heating bill out of a frozen account.

Frequently asked questions

How do I change the energy account into my name?

Ring the supplier's bereavement line, give the date of death and a meter reading taken that day if you can, and ask for a new account in your name from that date. Take identification and proof that you live at the property. The old account is then closed and billed up to that reading, and everything after it is billed to you. Ask for the closing balance and the new account details in writing.

What happens to money owed on the old account?

A closing balance in arrears is a debt of the estate and is claimed from the estate, not from a relative personally, unless the account was in joint names. A credit balance is refunded to the estate rather than to the deceased's own frozen bank account. Ask for the final bill in writing so the figure can be recorded in the estate accounts, whichever way the balance falls.

Do I have to stay with the same supplier?

No. Once the account is in your name you can switch like any other customer, though it is usually simpler to take the account over first and switch afterwards. Where a closing balance is still outstanding, some suppliers will block a switch, so settle the final bill before you start looking around for a better tariff.