BT Cease due to price rise

My father in law has bog standard broadband but due to old age doesn�t use the computer any longer. BT has notified him of the price rise in January. Can we cease the broadband and not pay the £31 cease charge as part of the price increase leave without penalty clause?

Plan would be to stay with BT for telephone only and benefit from the £7 price decrease in April. I appreciate there are other alternatives for telephone only but taking one step at a time.

Thanks

Barkingmad

Short answer, almost certainly not.

Long answer, the penalty clauses are for leaving by migration whilst within a minimum term contract, because the user is breaking that contract, and AIUI all broadband minimum term deals default to standard pricing on a monthly contract once the term ends.

It is only a relatively recent Ofcom rule that makes charging people for leaving within term not allowed if the customer is doing so because the price is rising above that the contracted for. (In fact if the rise I within one or other of the government price index rises I don't think the Ofcom rule technically applies anyway).

Unless he has been accepting retention deals or migrating between ISPs he won't be on a minimum term contract.

Those "penalty" charges are from the retail side of the individual ISP. The broadband "Cease charge" comes from Openreach and most ISPs pass it straight on to the customer. Nothing whatsoever to do with being in a minimum term and getting a free release from it.

I suggest you read clause 17bii of the T&Cs.

There may also be something in the price increase notice.

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

My father in law has bog standard broadband but due to old age doesn�t use the computer any longer. BT has notified him of the price rise in January. Can we cease the broadband and not pay the £31 cease charge as part of the price increase leave without penalty clause?

About two thirds through the BT's email to me about the changed prices is
You don't need to do anything but if you want to change something,
please give us a call. If you want to leave and you're within your
minimum contract term, you'll need to call us within 30 days of
receiving this email to avoid paying a charge for leaving early. You'll
need to give us 30 days' notice to leave (or 14 days if you're
switching to a new provider). We won't charge you for any increase in
price during that time.

BT broadband cancellations are:
From the UK: 0800 783 1401
From outside the UK: +44 179 359 6931*
We are open:
Monday to Friday 8am - 9pm
Saturday 8am - 8pm
Sunday 9am - 6pm
Please have your account number ready (it's on your bill).

When I called them (sounded English and friendly), they checked that I had been sent a get out of jail free email, and after I declined to remain, said that I had a fresh 30 days to actually move my broadband and phone. So, I am off (to A&A for Home:1 1TB FTTC and an unusable phone).

I suggest that you find the email and check it, or just call cancellations.
I suspect that while you won't be stung for contract termination, you will have to pay the £31(?) cease charge.

In reply to a post by BarkingMad:

Plan would be to stay with BT for telephone only and benefit from the £7 price decrease in April. I appreciate there are other alternatives for telephone only but taking one step at a time.

When A&A triggered the broadband switch (they do the phone switch a couple of days later) BT responded with:
Because you're breaking up your bundle by moving your broadband, we'll
put you on a new calling plan called Unlimited Weekend Calls . There's
no charge for this calling plan, but you'll still need to pay monthly
line rental. There won't be a minimum term contract for your new
calling plan.

So, it looks as if you can do as you wish.

Edited by awontroba (Wed 22-Nov-17 05:56:58)

Thanks for the info from RobertoS, Michael_Chare and awontroba

Father in law is in the 30 day email notification window. IMO, his contract is with BT Retail and if Openreach charge BTR for a cease but BTR has said you can leave penatly free due to price change then I don't see why we'd be charged the £31 cease. We'll see how it goes when we make the call.

We thought about cancelling BB last year but BT said have it for £0 for 12 months (and price won't increase if we increase our prices - this was the end of March 2017). Since then we had a price rise earlier this year which resulted in a non zero bill - which we disputed and asked them to listen to the call. We kept the BB service for £0 because made sense whilst we sorted our a new email address becaue to keep the @btinternet.com would have costed £5 (or is it more per month). Email now sorted.

Leaving to migrate to another provider could be considered different to ceasing service totally.

So all depends on interpretation

I'm not a big fan of these "£0 for 12 months" offers. At the end of the day someone down the line has to pay and often that's why there is price increases to offset the offers they provide.

It's always a good idea not to have your email with your ISP as it can be a right pain when you leave your ISP or at the very least an expense.

If it helps, a few months ago I had a price increase notification from TalkTalk Business - I had both broadband & phone with them. I was in mid contract with them and they let me leave penalty free. However I wanted get of their broadband altogether (cease) but move my phone service to another provider. This was done without any issues but I was not charged any broadband cease fees. Its possible that only the smaller/niche ISPs charge cease fees, the mass market providers such as BT, TT, Sky et al may simply absorb the OR cease charges d/t higher profit margins.