Problems Setting Up New Connection - Old Owners Still Paying

Family members have just completed on a property and on moving in tried to set up a new landline/broadband service. The process came to a halt when the ISP tried to do a "line test". This was not possible, it seems, as the outgoing owners had not cancelled the service and are still paying for it.

The latter fact is easy to believe as the outgoing owners have been tardy and badly organised in most aspects to the purchase process.The fact remains that the incoming owners seem to be blocked from using the line to the property thanks to the neglectfulness of the previous owners.

Communications are going back through solicitors, but this is a legendarily slow process even disregarding the disorganised previous owners. So would appreciate any thoughts or positive experiences related to getting this sorted in a timely way.

TIA

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Apr-19 15:08:19)

The new provider should be able to force things through.

Interestingly I was going to ask a question about this as I am going to be moving soon and it has been a long time since I last did.

At what point can a new home owner order a connection? Do you have to wait until completion and the old owners are out of the house? Can you order beforehand in order to try and get it installed when moving in? I assume from your post that if the previous owners haven't cancelled then the supplier should be able to make it go through - but wouldn't that be an issue if someone did that maliciously just to cut someone else's connection?

Sorry to hijack but they all are related to the OPs question I think.

The issue around hijacking is meant to be handled by the losing provider contacting its customer

This does not always work, hence the odd slam that happens when a provider gets an address wrong.

As for the point to order depends on the time to install, so best to ask the provider.

Hi

You really need to wait until the completion date and you have the keys as at that point the house is legally yours.

If the vendor is approachable and you have exchanged contracts (so things are likely to progress to completion and dates agreed) then you could arrange things ahead of time by an informal agreement for them to cancel their service and let you start ordering, however they may of course not risk to be without broadband (or phone) before they've moved out to want to start the process.

Regards

Phil

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Apr-19 14:52:18)

I requested that my service was moved the my new house roughly 3 weeks before the old owners moved out. They got a letter to say that a line had been ordered to the property and if they did nothing their line would be turned off in 30 days I think.

Then the move was delayed slightly but I was able to keep delaying the move on BT�s website and the line came on at exactly the right time on the day we moved in. I was quite impressed.

So yes, my answer would be to order the line while the old occupiers are still in the house.

I had the same issue. My provider was Plusnet at the time. They took care of it, but the route they had to take was to first get the line "clear" of the old owners, and only then they could place the order for the line to be reactivated. They couldn't place my order until the old owners were off the line, even though they knew the date that the disconnection would take place. So they got it sorted for me, it just took some time. About 3 weeks after I moved in IIRC.