Getting Your Utilities Hooked Up

Begin with your new place of residence. You’ll need to arrange for utilities—electricity, gas (used for cooking in most of the world), cable (if you want it), internet, and a landline phone (again, if you want one… many people around the world go without them and rely entirely on their cell phones).

Electricity and gas, though, aren’t optional, so start here. Unless you’re moving into a just-built apartment or house, the electricity will be hooked up already and perhaps already turned on. Often, if you’re renting, the account with the local electric company (and, therefore, the electric bill) will remain in the name of the landlord. It’s simpler and safer for them.

Again, you may not need or want cable or a landline for a telephone. Investing (or not) in cable is your call. Maybe you want to be able to watch international sporting events or CNN and BBC news broadcasts. If you decide you want to invest in cable service… well, you’re familiar with cable guys back home. They’re worse overseas…

What about cell phone? It’s fair to assume that most of the world now owns smartphones, which make a move overseas that much easier… All you need is to get a local SIM card, replace it in your phone (or have the guys at the store do it for you), and you’re good to go. Plans overseas work much the same as they do back home; you’ll be offered a certain amount of call time, data, and text messages for which you’ll pay monthly. Some plans even include free calls to North America. If not, you can use Facetime, Skype, WhatsApp, or any other of these services to call loved ones back home—for those you’ll either need to use your cell data or have a Wi-Fi connection.

In many places around the world, as in the United States, the cable company is the telephone and the internet company, meaning you can opt for a package that provides all three services for less cost (usually) and less hassle than installing one or two of the three services individually.

The other utility you’ll likely need to arrange for is gas. If your new home is serviced by mains natural gas, you’ll need to sign up for gas as well as electricity with the local provider. Depending on where you’re going, you might not have mains gas available as an option. In these places, you’ll use bottled gas (propane) for cooking and hot water. If this is the case where you relocate, you’ll need to ask around to find out who to call to have new propane tanks delivered. You may be asked to leave a deposit for the first delivery. You’ll want two tanks on hand at all times, the one you’re using and an extra to switch to when the first one runs out. When one runs out, you call the service for them to come to exchange it.

In Ireland, our house, like most in the country, was heated with oil. Common practice was to wait for the oil tank to be nearly empty and then call for a refill. We decided (as we used enough gas on a regular basis) that we’d prefer for the heating oil company to come for scheduled refills every other month. This way we wouldn’t have to remember to call or worry about running out. However, persuading the oil company to schedule the regular visits to our home was a challenge. No one else seemed to operate this way…

In much of the world, your rental or real estate agent should be able to help you set up these services. Most agencies that cater to foreigners have people whose job it is to get utilities installed or transferred into your name. If the agent you’re working with doesn’t offer, ask. Sometimes, he or she will do it for a small fee, which can be well worth it, given the time and hassle it can save you.

Once your utilities are set up, you’ll eventually have to pay the associated bills. In most of Europe, it’s a simple matter. In this part of the world, you can set up most utility payments on direct debit, and the amounts due will be automatically deducted from your local bank account on a specified day each month. As long as you’re diligent about balancing your local checkbook and making sure you have enough funds in your local account to cover all planned direct debits, this is a great system.

Fundamentally, the important point is to understand that these day-to-day services work differently everywhere in the world, even region-to-region within a country. It’ll take you a little while to cop on to the nuances of managing them effectively and efficiently. Don’t be afraid to ask for help… from the real estate agent you work with, the insurance agent, members of the local expat group, your new neighbors…

You could even consider hiring someone to manage all this for you. If you’re headed someplace where lots of other expats have already settled, then there’s likely to be services designed to do just that: help newcomers. Even if there isn’t a formal business catering to this need, you might find some local who’s willing to take care of it for a fee.