Moving into your new home
We want to make moving into your new home a great experience so here are some things you need to know.
Moving in
When you first move in, you will need to set up your utilities accounts. Make sure you take meter readings as soon as you move in. If your new home has a gas supply, the supply will have been capped while the property was empty. You will need to arrange for an engineer to come out and uncap it before you can turn the gas on. Call us on 0300 123 9966 to arrange for us to come out and get your gas on.
Contact the council to set up or change your Council Tax payments.
Remember to change your address with your doctor, bank, employer, school, DVLA, TV Licensing, etc. You can have your post redirect from you old address through the postoffice.com.
Your new home doesn’t come with furniture or flooring. If you receive benefits, you may be able to get help with a loan to cover essential furniture.
Find out where the stop taps, fuse box and trip switch are in case you need to find them quickly.
New tenancy
You will be asked to sign a new tenancy before you move in. This is a legal document and you should read it carefully so you understand the conditions before you sign it. The most common tenancies are:
- Assured shorthold: this is usually a yearly tenancy which is allowed to roll over on a monthly basis. You have limited rights and cannot exchange or transfer to another property.
- Starter: it is like an assured shorthold tenancy but converts to an assured tenancy after one year as long as you have adhered to the conditions in the tenancy. We may extend a starter tenancy by six months if we have concerns about how the tenancy is being conducted.
- Assured: this is a life-time tenancy and can only be ended by mutual agreement or a court order.
If you're signing a joint tenancy, you both have the same rights and are equally responsible for sticking to the conditions in the tenancy.
Your main responsibilities are:
Paying your rent: you must pay your rent in advance; we ask that you pay your rent and any service charge by direct debit. We can help you set this up when you sign your tenancy.
Reporting repairs: looking after your new home is your responsibility as well as ours. Your tenancy agreement sets out what you are responsible for and what we are.
Insurance: we insure the building of your home but not your personal belongings. You must take out contents insurance to cover your belongings against flood, fire, burglary or damage. You can protect your belongings against a range of risks, including, theft, fire, vandalism and flooding with My Home Contents Insurance.
Keys: when you move in, you will be given two sets of keys/fobs for your main door as well as a set for any other locks. Please note that we don’t keep spare keys so if you lose them or need more copies you will need to get these cut yourself.
If you lock yourself out and call us, you will have to pay for us to attend and get you in. If you lose communal keys or fobs, you can contact us for replacements but you will be charged.
Finally, once you have your tenancy reference number, you should register for a MyOneHousing account here You can use it for a number of things, including paying your rent, reporting a repair, reporting a complaint or something else or just to check out the information on there.
If you have any questions about moving into your new home, you can email us at ask@onehousing.co.uk