Buying a new house is an exciting achievement but for some, an unexpected electricity bill of the previous owner, can end the celebration.

It is against this backdrop the City of Ekurhuleni has encouraged new home owners to apply and register prepaid meters into their names, in order to start their municipal account records on a clean slate.

“In an event where the newly bought house is registered under a previous owner or a developer, it is important to speedily change ownership at the nearest customer care centre to have the meter registered in the customer’s name.

“A new homeowner is able to purchase electricity if they have not registered their electricity meter. New customers with prepayment meters receive a once-off allocation of 40 Kilowatt-hour units, to allow time to purchase a new prepayment token,” the city said in a statement on Friday.

The allocation is placed as an arrear amount on the prepayment meter account and is recovered with the first monetary transaction.

Source: South African Government News Agency