When purchasing a house do i take on any contracts ongoing?

Harryp_24

Basically the house has a 24 hour monitored alarm, it is running on a 5 year contract being paid monthly. I do not care for an monitored alarm system but will i take on the contract? As the contract is not in my name is it possible to cancel said contract?

Guest101

It depends but probably. However if you move in then try to cancel you would have a deemed contract.


So really vendors need to sort that out

Freecall

Buildings can't enter into contracts, only corporate bodies and real people can unless there is a specific statute to the contrary eg. tenancy agreements or a registered agreement or deed which is assigned to the property eg. some solar panel contracts and the like.

So no, whether or not you sign up to existing suppliers for power, broadband, alarm etc is entirely up to you.

ThePants999

This is (probably) up for negotiation, essentially. Assuming the contract is transferable, but I'm sure it is.

We can't give you definitive advice without seeing the contract itself, but here's the basic idea:
- If the contract CAN be cancelled, you should inform the vendor that they should cancel it after exchange of contracts. If there are penalties for doing so, it's then a matter of negotiation between you and the vendor as to who pays them. You can't cancel it yourself when it's not in your name.
- If the contract cannot be cancelled, or the penalties for cancelling are so close to the amount that would be paid in the remaining term that there's no point cancelling, then again, it's negotiation time. The vendor will want to transfer the contract, with all remaining financial liability, to you. You will want the vendor to compensate you for this unanticipated cost for an unwanted service. You'll need to find a mutually agreeable position. The vendor can't unilaterally transfer the contract to you without your agreement, but they also don't have to agree to sell you the house if you haven't resolved this :-)

Guest101

Freecall wrote: »

Buildings can't enter into contracts, only corporate bodies and real people can unless there is a specific statute to the contrary eg. tenancy agreements or a registered agreement or deed which is assigned to the property eg. some solar panel contracts and the like.

So no, whether or not you sign up to existing suppliers for power, broadband, alarm etc is entirely up to you.

Buildings cant enter into contracts and none of your examples suggest that.


People enter into contracts, but there are deemed contracts. If you use a service, you are deemed to accept there will be a cost implication.


Buildings can and very often to form part of a contract

steampowered

No, you do not take on pre-existing contracts.

The only exception would be something like utilities - this is basically liability for things like electricity/water is based on specific legislation rather than on contract law.

However if you continued to use the alarm system, in the full knowledge that this is a chargeable service, you could be deemed to have entered into a new contract by your conduct.

So if you don't want to have the alarm I would suggest taking it down or deactivating it, and make any hardware available for collection by the alarm company.

G_M

If you simply don't pay, who will the alarm company sue? You? Maybe, but no court would fimd in their favour as there is no contract between you and them.

'Deemed contract'? Yes if you make use of the service. This applies, for example, with the electricity supply. By turning on the lights you are deemed to have created a contract since you are using the electricity.

If you leave the alarm system switched on, the same would apply. Likelwise if you called them out to service the system etc.

But if you turn it off immediately and never use it, there can be no deemed contract.

However, for the avoidance of doubt, I would write to them informing them you are doing so.

If the previous owner's contract has a minimum term (eg 5 years) still to run, that is matter between the two of them.

AlexMac

You've now had a clear reply that you won't have to honour any contract, although the convention is that you inherit the gas and electricity supplier till you instruct a new one (I'd strongly recomment OVO; good prices , small, approachable and you can actually get through on the phone to great staff in UK based call centres?)

Domestic consumers don't have a choice of water supplier!

The alarm hardware (the PIR room sensors, door or window contacts, the control box and associated wired or wirelss connections and the box that rings the monitoring agency) will be worthless, in that no-one will find it cost effective to strip it out (with the possible exception of the speech dialler or call up gizmo)

But, based on our expereice, it will still work. We have a 20 or 30 year old set up with wired connections, and it is still perfect, 5 years after we inherited it. It used to have a dial-up facility, but we didn't want that. More hassle than it's worth - if we get burgled, the bell goes off and the bad guys run away ( I speak from personal experience- we got burgled 2 weeks after moving in- becuase I didn't realise the window catches were only secured by useless half inch screws).

It would have made no difference if the alarm had contacted a call centre, who would have conatcted the police, or us... And anyway, we have good neighbour keyholders who reacted to the alarm

BUT. the reason the alarm even went off (and scared off the bad guys) was that we had called in out own alarm company a day or two after we moved in, and got them to re-comission the bits we wanted to keep (for not much more than their usual £100 annual manintenence visit fee). They simply de-comissioned the dial up box, which is a separate add on to any system

They even programmed it so we could part set the downstairs only areas as we went to bed, despite the fact that the estate agent didn't even give us the setting codes; any decent comany can over-ride and reset these.

Just don't let the existing Alarm Company bounce you into an over-priced contact.

Just change those door- locks and check or beef up your window locks.

Oh and you don't have to take on their Tesco deliveries, window cleaner, wheelie-bin cleaners or dog-walkers... Although you have no choice of dustmen and dustwomen!

boliston

Harryp_24 wrote: »

Basically the house has a 24 hour monitored alarm, it is running on a 5 year contract being paid monthly. I do not care for an monitored alarm system but will i take on the contract? As the contract is not in my name is it possible to cancel said contract?

A "lock in" clause would NEVER apply to a new owner - some utilities have a lock in "fixed" deal but this would only ever be enforceable on the client who signed up to the deal, you can never "inherit" a lock-in.