Moving house - What happens to your old phone line?

KTF

We are due to complete and move house next Wednesday and as we have sky phone, broadband, and tv I called them up to start the home move process.

Sky said that they 'take over' the active line in the new property so the previous owners must leave the line active otherwise the move will fail and we have to pay BT to get it reconnected, etc. Apparently they dont move phone numbers as well (even though its on the same exchange) which is annoying but not a big issue.

So I was wondering what the default option is when you move out? The house we are moving to has a BT line and they are signed up to bT so will the existing owners settle the bill and the line is left active ready for us to move in or will BT generally cancel the line on the day they move out and we will be left to the mercy of openreach to get it activated again?

When I moved in to the place we are selling I just plugged in the phone and it worked and BT set me up an account.

R_P_W

The sellers will cancel their phone line or will be moving to their new property.

The only people you need to deal with should be your provider I.e. sky. They need to arrange the line. You don't deal with open reach , sky do. The line is still there, there is probably a simple activity to be carried out at the exchange

KTF

Ok so by 'active line' they mean installed rather than it has a dial tone on it?

PaulLuke

Exactly that, the line will remain active but unused for some time after the previous owner moves out. If left unused for longer than a certain period of time then BT may at some point de-activate the line.