Move out but leave BT line active for new people?

jd87

Is it possible to cancel your BT account in a way that leaves the line active so that future tenants don't have to pay reconnection fees? I just hate the way we had to pay something like £120 connection fee when we moved in and BT didn't even need to send anyone round, so I'm just trying to save the next person the money.

I know it's not my problem really but if it's just a case of asking for it then I'd like to do it. I read something about having the line "stopped" rather than cancelled. Is this what I need to ask for?

Mark_In_Hampshire

In a word, no. The application of the "new line" or "reactivation" fee seems to be applied more or less randomly, the charge differs among various providers from about £39 up to about £150 and you don't know who the next tenant would use anyway. Indeed they might not want a phone line anyway. As an example: if it's cabled, we'd have cable broadband without phone line anyway, so the matter is not relevant.

Heinz

I would strongly advise against even attempting to do what you are suggesting, pleasing as it is to hear your obvious good intent.

You don't know the character of the next occupants and, if somehow your name remains associated with the account, there's a remote possibility that you'll get stung for their call charges.

cajef

The purchaser can arrange it, the last two house moves I have done I phoned BT and told them I was moving into the property and wanted to take the line over on the moving in date and it was transfered without any charges.

Ady87

When you cancel your account with a company, the line remains stopped for anywhere between 6 months and a year. After that point the line goes inactive and requires a reconnection.

A working line has a 2 week lead time to take over. A stopped line can be activated with a 1 day lead time, broadband would take 5 days to activate on a stopped line. And an entirely new connection will take 7 days minimum depending on how busy OpenReach are in your area.

So, you can stop your line without worrying about someone else paying charges, providing they take up a service relatively soonish.

It happened to us, we went to Viegin for 2 years, came back, and needed an engineer install. But, if you take broadband with BTm whether you need an engineer or not, it's free connection.