Openreach have removed my phone line (legal advice)

Johnt1986

hi all
I have recently purchased a house and moved in. We choose sky for our phone and broadband and other the last two months of waiting we have no been told that we have no phoneline, there is no exchange box in the area with any room for ours and that major engineering work will need to be carried out in the local area for us to receive one! Basically we may have a phone and internet next year but don't get your hopes up!

During our struggles with SKY, BT and Openreach (none of whom are interested) one of the openreach engineers let slip that our phoneline was removed from the exchange box and another house connected in the time between our house being put on the market and us buying it.

Thing is in our homebuyers contract the seller has stated the property was being sold with the phoneline provided by BT and broadband by TalkTalk.

Should I contact the solicitor we used to buy the house and try to take legal action?

SKY say theres nothing they can do apart from ask Openreach fit the line, openreach wont speak to the end user and BT say openreach is nothing to do with them?!

Basically I want the house that took my space in the exchange box removed and mine reconnected. Do I have a legal case as it says in my house contracts that the phoneline is there and openreach have not been given permission to remove it?

cheers

John

JJ_Egan

Phone line belongs not to you not to the vendor of your property but to BT .

macman

Correct: BT OR is a separate company from BT Retail.
OR constantly recycle lines: it's not 'your' line, or the previous owners, it belongs to OR. It was presumably recycled after the previous owners cancelled the service before they moved out, and before you applied for reconnection-someone else was on the waiting list and was allocated it.
Whether you have a case against your vendor is a matter for your solicitor, but I very much doubt it.

jrawle

Perhaps this should be moved to the house buying forum? I don't think Openreach have done anything wrong. The sellers or their solicitor may have done something wrong by stating the house sale included a phoneline, and your solicitor could even be to blame for not picking this up. You should speak to your solicitor in the first instance, but any claim would be against the sellers not BT.

Johnt1986

oh dear, so I have no phoneline, no internet and no prospect of getting either anytime soon
Also SKY have paid Openreach the connection fee plus the fee to install the new line so i cant cancel it either.
Virgin are not in my area so I cant even use them!

deklan99

As far as I'm aware BT still have a Universal Service Obligation to provide access to a phone line to anyone who asks. They will charge a set fee if the cost of installation is under £3400 but anything over that is charged to the customer.
If you're that desperate for a landline then check with Ofcom to see if that's still the case and take it from there.

JJ_Egan

Johnt1986 wrote: »

oh dear, so I have no phoneline, no internet and no prospect of getting either anytime soon

Mobile dongle is the route i would look at if desperate for internet .

iniltous

Johnt1986 wrote: »

oh dear, so I have no phoneline, no internet and no prospect of getting either anytime soon
Also SKY have paid Openreach the connection fee plus the fee to install the new line so i cant cancel it either.
Virgin are not in my area so I cant even use them!

Sky haven't paid Openreach anything, if you want to cancel, there is nothing stopping you, apart from Sky, even if they had paid OR, so what, you ordered something from Sky,not Openreach, your contract is with Sky, they failed to deliver, it doesnt matter they were failed by their supplier, they should cancel if you want to cancel , and refund anything you have paid to them, and take it up with OR if they feel that OR owe them a refund,
As others have said, just because the property had a line in the past doesn't guarantee the line for ever, and if the ceased connection at your house was needed elsewhere OR can use it to supply someone else in the local area.
If there are no spare lines in your area, and major engineering work required to provide more new lines, then that can take a while and could involve excess construction charges to you, via the CP, Sky in your case, depending on the circumstances

System

deklan99 wrote: »

As far as I'm aware BT still have a Universal Service Obligation to provide access to a phone line to anyone who asks. They will charge a set fee if the cost of installation is under £3400 but anything over that is charged to the customer.
If you're that desperate for a landline then check with Ofcom to see if that's still the case and take it from there.

It may be the case but as the OP said that major engineering work would be needed then it looks like the bill will be >£3400 so OP would be liable if they really pushed for a line.

Buzby

You would look to the seller to reimburse all costs if no working phone line is there when you move in. The whole point of this clause is to prevent the situation you now find yourself in.

Who terminated the service? In an area where there is a pressing need for spare cable pairs, no line should be ceased as the pair will be grabbed and given to the waiting customer. The person that cancelled was instrumental in causing the issue, so your solicitor should chase them.

System

The line was not ceased by the seller. The seller merely cancelled their contract. As this frees the line then BT will re-allocate it to a person on the waiting list.

Even if the seller had waited until the day of completion to allow the buyer to order it immediately then it would have been the same outcome. The line would be re-allocated to the next in line and the buyer would go to the bottom of the queue.

A change of bill payer, especially if a new occupier is automatically a cancellation of the old contract