Do you have to pay a reconnection fee for EDF & Veolia?
If the previous occupants have terminated their contract then yes,
If they have not, can I just change the contract to my name?
No You have to start fresh with YOUR banking details etc. You can ask for the same type of contract butnot continue with the previous owners for said reasons. Plus your needs may be different to what theirs was.
That is effectively what happens, but you need to open your own contracts and provide your own details. And co-ordinate with precious occupants.
If you have the PDL numbers of the equipment (point de livraison) this can easily be done online.
Fees aside my top tip is to make sure that you aren’t talked into paying a monthly fixed rate which is then adjusted up or down after a year.
Ask for “une facturation au réel”, & you can opt for monthly or bi-monthly billing. Please note that the monthly “réel” option is only available if you have a Linky meter (which, theoretically, should be everyone).
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Couldn’t disagree more. 
The last thing on earth I want is to have my winter electricity bill soaring. I’d much rather have a steady, predictable amount taken out of my account each month that flattens consumption throughout the year. And if they’ve taken more and I get a rebate, great, that’s been a nice little bit of enforced saving.
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We are on a monthly fixed rate, but which we can can adjust up and down ourselves. Which suits us just fine as with having a gîte bills are very unstable. So if we have lots of winter bookings we adjust up, and if none we adjust down.
Thank you all for your incredibly supportive replies.
This is the reply from EDF: -
Each time that you open a contract in France (even though the contract was owned before) there is a connection fee of 13,94€, there is no way that those fees for accessing the electricity are not paid, they apply to everybody. If you take the fees for accessing the electricity + 2 months of standing charges + taxes it roughly makes a starting bill of approximately less than 30€, I cannot be more precise than this. It has a Linky meter.
VEOLIA wants a sum of 65.50 €; this is standard protocol.
I don’t know about VEOLIA… is this your electricity supplier rather than EDF???
No, it’s a water company.
that’s what I thought… and was wondering why it was being mentioned… too early in the day for me after a sleepless night… 
Unless… it’s just highlighting that EDF Electric charge around 30 euro for new client and VEOLIA Water charge 65.50 euro for a new client…
(ah well… breakfast beckons…)
@SuePJ I entirely support the viewpoint put by @Badger
Owning and running a property necessarily incurs expenses which should be budgeted for.
Far better that the money is sat in your bank account than theirs until the account becomes due.
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Clearly that works for you.
I’m of the opposite opinion that I’d rather pay for what I use rather than having to stump up for a yearly increase, nor do I want to loan my money to an energy supplier by overpaying.
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I paid approx that for a new account for my new house in July plus €295 for the meter to be installed at the edge of the drive, ten mins work! Been a Veolia customer in the old house for ever since they took over the Compagnie des Eaux in the 90’s.
Interesting! I must have missed it as when tenants left last year and we had to pick up the contracts I really remember the EDF person saying because it’s a linky so no need for a technician to visit the process is now free as long as no gap in service. All it involves is them changing details on a computer!
Theory and practice, never the twain and all that. No Linky here even though we had a meter man here 2/3 years ago who tried to fit one and failed telling us that EDF would be in touch, still waiting.
We have just recieved notification that we will receive refund of 13.87 as overpayment over last 12 months with new monthly payments going forward of 78 euros being 1 euro less than the previous 12 months. I have checked our current reading on the on line simulator and it is bang on the money. Next facture will be October 2023 with the only proviso being to contact Enedis in March/April next year with up to date reading so that EDF can make any adjustments necessary to monthly payments.
Who needs a Linky.
I read somewhere recently that Linky meters are having problems…with ants getting into them because they have Amidon in them which attracts the critters. Having seen the biggest blackest ants ever in my life outside my front door this summer, they are last lodgers I would want in my home!
It was the Linky that changed the game for me. With Linky you can easily monitor exactly what you have spent right up to the previous day. I put money aside regularly to cover the twice yearly bills, but I prefer to keep it set aside in my savings account rather than theirs, and I like to be able to decide how much to set aside and when. Perhaps I am a control freak but since it is now so easy to manage, I see no need for EDF to be involved beyond preparing two bills and taking two payments each year, I don’tneed them to help me budget, I don’t want to have to negotiate monthly amounts and mess about with balancing how much I’ve paid versus how much I owe. Far simpler to simply get a bill and pay it, end of.
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Us!
Before we had a linky, we received emails reminding us that that the submission of the numbers was due so a trip down the (long) drive to the box on the boundary was necessary. The numbers could be submitted either by logging in on the PC or by using the EDF app.
Now, that trip has become unnecessary since the Linky was installed. We still get the bi-monthly bills by email and the actual bill is paid automatically by DD.
What’s not to like?