Gas and Electricity Suppliers

An official of a gas or electricity company may enter your home if :

You agree to let the official enter.
A magistrate has given the official a warrant authorising the official to enter.
There is an emergency and the official has reason to believe that there is danger to life or property .

A gas or electricity board official is entitled to ask to enter your home, or to apply to a magistrate for a warrant, in order to :

Inspect, substitute, re-install a meter (including a pre-payment meter).
Add, alter or repair supply lines or pipes and other fittings.
Remove from a pre-payment meter money or tokens belonging to the supplier.
Inspect any other fittings.
Disconnect the supply or remove a meter or other fittings in certain circumstances.

In order to obtain a warrant, the official must show that :

You have been given at least twenty-four hours' notice (except in certain circumstances where at least 2 or 5 days or up to a week may be required ); and
He or she has asked to be admitted and you have refused; or
The premises are unoccupied.

Entry must be at a reasonable time and the official must leave the house as secure against trespassers as it was when he or she arrived , and make good any damage caused .

It is a criminal offence intentionally to obstruct a person who has a warrant or who asks to be admitted in an emergency ; the maximum penalty is a fine on level 3 (currently £1000). It is not an offence to refuse to let the official enter if there is no emergency and the official does not have a warrant.

The law governing those powers of entry is to be found in

the Rights of Entry (Gas and Electricity Boards) Act 1954;
Schedule 2B of the Gas Act 1986 (inserted by the Gas Act 1995) which sets out the “Gas Code”)
Schedule 6 of the Electricity Act 1989, which sets out the “Electricity Code”)

Back to to top