Actually, our prices for gas were also supposed to be increased from 7 cents to 12 cents. But after the gas price brake was abolished, we received a letter from the supplier stating that the old price from last year will remain and that we should consider the first letter null and void.
I think that must have been the abolished surcharge? The idea was that instead of the new contracts having to bear the increased costs alone now (or if that doesn’t work, companies going bankrupt), some of the cost could also be passed on to existing customers with old contracts. But by the time that was fairly well discussed, everyone had already massively increased prices for new contracts for quite a while, there was at least mostly no huge wave of bankruptcies, and at least in the media it then seemed more like “and now the companies that are already making massive profits can get even more from all customers,” which is why it was then scrapped. But actually, it was supposed to go exactly in the direction that meant:
how can it be that one pays so little, while another is paying many times more?
That’s exactly what the surcharge was supposed to partially offset. But as I said, it didn’t come to that. And whether the additional income from the surcharge would really have led to lower prices for new contracts, well, who knows. Probably a bit, but I also doubt it would have been passed on in full.
Even though that’s still a while off for us: How do people here actually handle it when they move into a newly built house? Since the completion date might still be uncertain, do they live with double burden of house plus rent for a short time? How does it work with the supplier contracts? You need double supply in the meantime. Then presumably you take the old contract with you and for a while just leave “one side” on basic supply or take a contract with monthly cancellation, or how is that normally arranged?
