Landlord and BT and third party: lengthy!

carolinosourus

OH has just spoken to the company, and apparently the LL made the decision to equip the line back in August. We don't move in until 3rd October and we signed the contract on 9th September... We didn't even see the flat until about 5th September! There was no mention of this charge in the contract, anywhere.

Should we really be paying this? I don't think so.

iscrimger

You should have just sorted this out yourself and not ask the landlord at all. Utilities are really down to the tenant of the property.

BT at the best of times are useless, particularly when it comes to moving home.

Firstly a line can be 'disconnected' for any reason and can be shorter than 3 years. It could have been disconnected as a result of a non-paying account holder. If it's been disconnected for over 3 years they may charge you to replace the wiring.

The standard charge from BT OpenReach to connect a household line back to the network is £124 or a £126 - BT do usually offer deals such as taking out a minimum 12 month contract and you won't have to pay the connection charge. Your landlord should have nothing to do with the phone at all - it will be you who pays the bills.

As for the line being active already. You simply phone BT telling them you're moving there and want to take possession of the line. This takes around 14 days. They will attempt to contact the current account holder at the registered address. If they don't respond they cut off the line and make your own account active with BT.

carolinosourus

We didn't ask the LL to do it for us, we were more than happy to do it ourselves, as we have done previously, however we had a nice LL who agreed to split the cost with us as it means that the next tenant won't have to pay if they decide they want a phoneline- we can't get Virgin so that's not an option.

He contacted us to see whether we wanted him to do it, we said no as we'd contacted BT and they said that there was already an active line so they wouldn't need to charge us.

We then find out that there is an active line because in August, well before we'd even seen the flat or even knew about the flat, the LL decided that he would activate the phone line. We didn't sign the contract until 9th September and didn't see the flat until around the 7th. Therefore he's trying to charge us for something that he did himself, before he even knew that he would get tenants!

This is the point!! We didn't ask him to do anything!

shellsuit

I wouldn't pay it, no way.

He (so he says) says he will give you a choice and to let him know by the Tuesday, so you do and (so he says) he has done it anyway, only he didn't he did it before you even took the flat on.

Why the need for him to lie?

If I were you, I'd just say you're not going to pay it because you have decided that you don't need a landline after all and he should have waited till the end of the Tuesday before going ahead with anything (even tho he didn't have to as it was done months before!)

Looks like he just wants the £99 from you, cheeky sod!

carolinosourus

I know! I really don't understand why he just said that it was already connected instead of asking us what we wanted to do, and then for him to sound pleased for us that we wouldn't have to pay, to then send an email from someone else who worked at the company to say that it had already been done, to us going round the houses to find out that he'd lied, instead of just telling us!

I reckon that the agent told him that we were a nice young couple and he's thought 'oh ho, let's see what I can get away with'...

shellsuit

Have you had any contact with the LL since you received that email?

carolinosourus

Nope, OH has tried to call him and left messages for him. The problem is that he asked us to let him know by Tuesday as he was going on holiday, and from what I can work out he's not back from holiday until the 3rd October which is the day he's due to meet us to give us the keys and do the inventory. OH has sent him an email to ask him to call but I don't hold out much hope...

silvercar

So where do you go from here?

Do you want to take this property? If you don't feel comfortable with this landlord, would you consider walking away?

Although you say you could stick to mobiles and dongles, in practice dongles lose connection and their speed is intermittent. If you intend doing anything other than the odd email you would be better off with broadband. Now that m-line have installed the line, there is probably a 12 month minimum contract term. So your choice is either to accept the line (at £99) or pay BT £125 to install a second line and refuse to have anything to do with the m-line connection.

You really are in a no-win situation. Only you can judge whether your pro-active landlord is a sign that he will sort out any maintenance issues quickly or if the breakdown of trust means you would be more comfortable looking for a different property.

carolinosourus

We've signed the contract and paid the deposit, I'm not really sure that we can back out now, and as we have to move out of our current property by 7th October then there won't be a chance, especially round here, of finding anything else.

As he activated the line back in August before the property was actually on the rental market, why should he now expect to pass this cost onto us? We've spoken to BT and they won't charge us for connection as there is an active line in the property and this is in process, we ordered that on 14th September. We're dealing with BT, that is in our name, presumably all this stuff with M-Line is in his name. So he has got absolutely no leg to stand on. TBH if we hadn't found out that he asked M-Line to activate the line back in August then we may have just said that we'd pay half, as we shouldn't really be responsible for the charge as we didn't ask him to do this.

EDIT: it's like, someone owning a house then putting it up for rent while they move and trying to charge the new tenant for the washing machine even though it was bought before they even thought about renting out the property...

silvercar

We're dealing with BT, that is in our name, presumably all this stuff with M-Line is in his name.

Are BT retail really going to provide a service on a line that Outreach/ BT Wholesale have leased to m-line on a 12 month contract?!?!?!

If all parts of BT talk to each other, I would expect them to contact you and say there isn't a free line, as the one line to the property is under contract to a third party. They could then offer to install a second line to the property at a charge of £125.

I see what you are saying, but you could also look at it like BT providing lines to new build property when they are built. They do that so the wiring can be installed with the build but charge the customer the full installation fee when they take service.

Of course, if BT do take over that line, you can tell the landlord that there isn't an m-line service and he could go back to m-line and get a refund. But theoretically, BT shouldn't provide service on a line that is contracted to someone else.

My knowledge on leased lines and resellers is not totally upto date. I would post on the telecom board here or somewhere like digitalspy or possibly av forums to see if anyone has more upto date info.

As I understood things, BT wouldn't supply a private line from a line that has been leased to a reseller. That being the case, you are caught between paying for this line, getting a second line from BT at higher cost or doing without a land line. The cheapest option is to take the m-line, but you may be so annoyed that you don't want to do this. Please don't cut off your nose to spite your face and struggle with mobiles and dongles for a whole year.