BT contract after person has deceased.

londonTiger

Hi

My late brother took out 3 mobile phones take off his BT home bill for 3 of his children. I don't believe his landline connection is on contract but the 3 mobiles are on 12 month contracts since August 2015.

Is the contract still in effect if the person has passed away?

The family have lost their breadwinner and we are helping them a little financially at the same time helping them budget more.

The kids are on £5 p/m contracts with £5 maximum credit entitelment. They tend to rack up the max credit on data charges outside of college/home and the total mobile bills comes to £30.

I noticed there's a good plusnet deal (free internet when you move your broadband and phone over to them). They could in theory do this but the BT mobile base price will go up to £10 each as the £5 each is a promo offer.

I'm curious as to how enforceable this is given that the billpayer has passed away, will they try to seek compensation from the estate if widow was to cancel the contracts?

The BT "special" £5 deal isn't so special anyway because the minimum credit cap is £5 so they end up taking £10 a month anyway. Plus iD mobile have a much more generous £5 deal, it would be better for the children to move to ID mobile.

londonTiger

i dont want to call in and ask them because that might reallly mess things up.

They may want to cancel the phone, internet and associated mobiles and then request a new account is opened under the widows name and force her on a new 12 month contract.

Or worse they cancel everything and then send a bill to the estate of the deceased asking for money to be paid for the remainer of the contract.

Marktheshark

A service contract ends on death, failure to inform the provider and if others to continue to use the service is fraud and theft of services.
Any liability for the contract up to point of death is down to the estate to pay.

londonTiger

Marktheshark wrote: »

A service contract ends on death, failure to inform the provider and if others to continue to use the service is fraud and theft of services.
Any liability for the contract up to point of death is down to the estate to pay.

Fraud and theft, some of the !!!!!!!! Harped on in mse. That's for BT and the authorities to decide and not you

And how is it theft if BT are being paid?

londonTiger

I don't want any bigoted and opinionated answers, will the contract end without any outstanding money owed for the remainder of the contract. Or will they terminate service and ask the estate to cough up the remainder

mwarby

Assuming the mobiles are sim only, and the contract didn't include expensive equipment, I'd think it'd all end with minimal fuss. I'd think given the very limited cost of ceasing everything and with no need to recover equipment cost, they'd just close the account

In theory they probably could chase the estate(depends on term in contract), but I'd think for amount involved they wouldn't bother

In terms of use after death, as long as they are informed kn good time and you've not run up obsence bills, I doubt this would be an issue. Let it drag on this may well change. BT will expect to be told in good time, but should understand there are more important things to do

In short my guess is for PR reasons they won't want to chase bills, but that sympathy will be erroded if they feel the mikey is being taken

Marktheshark

The truth often is bigoted and opinionated, the contract ended on his death.
If others are using the service then there becomes a point at which it is fraudulent.

Other wise, why not just use the Gas and electric and carry on regardless.
The administrators primary duty is to mitigate any losses and inform any contracted partys of the death and mitigate any losses, if they fail to do so they become personally liable.

Who ever is administering the estate should call the service providers of all service contracts and inform them the contract has finalised due to death of the contracted party.

macman

Surely one of the first calls made by the executor would be to the bank to inform them of his death? This will effectively freeze the account and no more DD or other payments will go out. So not informing BT is hardly a solution, as the account will go into debt. Upon evidence in the form of a death certificate, the accounts will be closed from date of death and a final bill sent to the estate. His death terminates the contract, but it does not wipe out any debt/credit due.
This is hardly an unusual event, since these days a large no. of people who pass away will have contract mobile accounts, so all the mobile providers must have procedures in place for this.

londonTiger

macman wrote: »

Surely one of the first calls made by the executor would be to the bank to inform them of his death? This will effectively freeze the account and no more DD or other payments will go out. So not informing BT is hardly a solution, as the account will go into debt. Upon evidence in the form of a death certificate, the accounts will be closed from date of death and a final bill sent to the estate. His death terminates the contract, but it does not wipe out any debt/credit due.
This is hardly an unusual event, since these days a large no. of people who pass away will have contract mobile accounts, so all the mobile providers must have procedures in place for this.

The bills are paid in cash, and for the last two months they have been paying the bill at the post office.

The crucial point here is that the estate (widow) will have to pay the remainder of the contract and they will not receive any of the services paid for. i.e. phones disconnected. They probably wont even be able to get a PAC to move the phones because they "do not have permission".

They wont have sympathy and just cancel the contract and not ask for the remainer to be paid. EE were on the papers for insisting on full repayment of the remainder of the contract from the deceased person.

I'll advise them to just keep going with the contract and then as soon as the contract is over just change to a different network.

londonTiger

Marktheshark wrote: »

The truth often is bigoted and opinionated, the contract ended on his death.
If others are using the service then there becomes a point at which it is fraudulent.

Not when the people using the service are the inheritors of the estate. You just like to kick people down on this forum and throw wild accusations.

Can you explain why you regard this as theft? you conveniently missed that part.

giraffe69

Doesn't bt have a bereavement department to help with such things?