Moving Into a New Apartment? Here Are Four (4) Things You Must Check

It's almost the end of another year, and we expect that a chunk of people are recalibrating their lives, making new resolutions and decisions, attempting newer things and per what we want to talk to you about, moving into new apartments.

Generally, the beginning of a year is a great time to move into a new apartment. It gives that sense of a new beginning, lets people set new, proper (rent) goals for the year and so on.
Hence, we decided to write this to inform our readers of stuff to look out for when moving into a new apartment. Especially as it pertains to accessing electricity.

Stay with me.

1. Make sure the house is free from Electricity debt.

One very common occurrence that happens to new tenants is, they get to meet an electricity debt owed by a former tenant in the apartment they moved into. As a result, they are bound to pay up such debt subsequently.

Before moving into an apartment, please make sure (by either asking the landlord or reaching out to your Electricity Distribution Company) that there isn't a debt owed in the house. Else, the previous debt is combined with (re)current ones and the burden is placed on the new tenant.

2. Inspect the apartment for any illegal Electricity connections.

Except you want to, at some point, be detained for offenses you know nothing about, please try to inspect the apartment for any illegal electricity connections. If you find any, make sure you disconnect such.

How would an illegal connection be determined if there's one? We recommend employing the services of a good electrician to make this check and give appropriate advice and recommendations.

3. Determine the kind of electricity (and other) billings.

Nigerian houses are largely still divided into two forms of billing, per their electricity consumption - Prepaid meters and estimated billings. With Prepaid billings, you can buy electricity units before consumption, while those on estimated billing get an estimated bill after monthly consumption.

This should be determined before moving into an apartment, so it helps to know how to plan and budget for bills. Also, ask if water bills are paid for, and other forms of recurrent bills to help you plan.

4. Troubleshoot prepaid meter.

If the apartment uses a prepaid meter, please make sure to confirm if the meter is working fine. Purchasing electricity units on www.buypower.ng, inputting your token and checking to see if there's an issue you might need to resolve is a good start.

Once there’s an issue, do reach out to the respective Electricity Distribution Company and request for a Meter Engineer.

So, that's it. Four things to be checked to have a problem-free stay in a new apartment.

If you have more ideas on things to check out for when moving to a new apartment, kindly share them with us. It could be from your experience or things you overlooked when you moved to your present apartment.

The floor is yours!

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