£600 fee to cancel BT broadband

Luckyorigami wrote: »

Asking on behalf of my daughter.
She and her partner have been told that they have to pay £600 to come out of contract. They are moving out of their rented accommodation to move back in with us, so won't be needing an internet service. They have given BT 32 days notice. I am not sure about all details or length of contract left.
But as you can imagine they are worried about the amount.
Are BT allowed to insist on this amount of payment?
Thank you for any help

£600 sounds high, how much longer do they have on their contract and what were they paying BT for? Double check the figure is not a mistake.

Your daughter can transfer their BT contract to another phone line to avoid paying it off. The contract would still be in your daughters name and she would have to pay the bill and get the money back from wherever it gets installed. It would be most convenient to transfer it to your phone line.

If you are in contract too then you would need to weigh up whether it's worth paying yours off instead, or finding someone you really trust. It would also be worth putting a written agreement together which covers what their liabilities are, to avoid any confusion if they start calling Australia and then refuse to pay your daughter back (or move themselves, unable to pay or die etc).

My sister did this even though she wasn't living with our parents. They entered an agreement where they paid what their current line rental was & any calls. My parents got a youview box with BT Sport and an otherwise unused adsl connection free for a year. My sister got out of paying a lump sum & what she had to contribute was a lot less than the cancellation fee. At the end of the contract they just cancelled the extra services and switched back again.