Closing Utilities before your Reston Movers arrive

So, you’ve reached the stage where you have all of the boxes packed, the bubble-wrap has just about run out and there’s hardly a chair to sit on. You are ready to move out of your home and are just awaiting the arrival of your Reston moving company to get started and actually move to your new home. Suddenly, that one thing that had been nagging you from somewhere at the back of your head pops up. The utilities!

It’s a common story that the last thing people moving home think of doing is to arrange to have their utility bills ended. Sometimes, you can get the electricity, gas or water services cut off altogether, especially if your house is not yet ready for market or no-one will move in for quite some time.

The fact is this is something that should always be looked into well in advance, not least because of the danger of forgetting, but also because of the extra bills that may fall at your feet should you fail to do so and the effect on your credit rating should you fail to pay for months on end.

Know the Procedure

When we say looked into, that’s what we mean. There is no real need to have your electricity and phone connections cut off before moving day, since an unexpected emergency may result in you needing to utilize those very utilities. So, what you should do is check with the particular companies on what their disconnection regulations are. Some companies will charge a disconnection fee and add it to your final bill. There may also be a penalty if you seek a disconnection very late on.

Make an Early Request

To avoid the added expenses that tardiness can result in, make an official disconnection request to the company two or three weeks in advance. This will allow their personnel time to come out and take final readings. This will also give you time to arrange to have the deposit you paid all those years ago repaid to you. State the moving date you have agreed with your Reston moving company as the cut off day.

Moving Day

Once the requests are in and moving day comes, the only thing left to do is take final readings of water, electricity and gas, to off-set against the readings taken by the company reps a couple of weeks earlier. If the ground work has been done, then this should be about as stressful as slicing a cream cake.

Get Connected at Your New Home

Don’t forget to do the opposite at your new home. As you are making the arrangements to have your utilities cut off at one address, be making arrangements to have them turned on at the other. You might decide to use the same utility suppliers, in which case you may be able to simply transfer the balance to your new account. However, if you can’t then arrange to have the final bill forwarded to you at your new abode.

Moving house is stressful enough, but arriving at your new place to find no lights working and (perhaps) the rooms as cold as iceboxes is not an ideal start. Be as diligent in this area as in packing and you can enjoy a smooth move. You can ask our customer service personnel about anything else that you might need to do. We’d be glad to help.