Internal Cabling Bodged By Landlord

When we first moved into this house I wasn't impressed with my ADSL speed. It looked like the socket in the lounge was an extension from somewhere else, but I couldn't trace where it came from nor could I find the master socket.

There were actually phone sockets all over the place, only one worked and that had a lot of audible noise on it, so I phoned the rental agency and they sent this guy (not a BT engineer). He basically messed about with the sockets in the lounge for ages until he got the phone to work, but when I was asking him where the master socket was he said he didn't know & couldn't tell me.

Having investigated further since it seems one of the sockets in the lounge was the old LJU master socket - this is the one that no longer works, the cable has even been cut to it. The 'extension' socket next to it does work, but has no capacitor like the master socket should.

So I think he either swapped the cable that should have gone to the LJU into the extension - or swapped the front plates between the LJU and the extension (bypassing the one with the capacitor basically)

I have read that removing the plate on the LJU masters is illegal? Basically I just want a proper functioning phone line that I can be sure is as noise free as it can be.

Can the master socket issue be fixed by BT home IT support? Will there be a fee involved? Can BT bill the man responsible (he actually runs the letting agency) We're pretty skint and don't want to incur a massive fee from an engineer visit tbh. but I do want a non-bodged phone connection.

Can anybody tell me the legal status on this & whether any fees to correct it is the agencies responsibility, the landlords or the tenants? and how much said fees might be (new master socket & fitting)

In reply to a post by janimal:

Can BT bill the man responsible (he actually runs the letting agency) We're pretty skint and don't want to incur a massive fee from an engineer visit tbh. but I do want a non-bodged phone connection.

Can anybody tell me the legal status on this & whether any fees to correct it is the agencies responsibility, the landlords or the tenants? and how much said fees might be (new master socket & fitting)

Unlikely, they generally bill the phone line account holder, as you are requesting the work to be done. You would then need to attempt to get any fees back from your letting agent.

Check your contract with your agency. It is unlikely they have included a phone line within what you agree, or maintenance of that. You'd be on your own in that case as I doubt a phone line forms part of what your are renting from them.

Matt

Well it was the illegality of messing with the LJU Master Socket which I thought might have some bearing on this.

If he hadn't messed with it, I would have no hesitation in getting a BT Home IT support visit and have them replace the old master socket with a modern one and swallow the cost ourselves.

However I don't want a BT Engineer to suddenly decide to charge some penalty fee or worse for the master socket having been interfered with.

I don't know much about telephone wiring, but I assume master sockets are there for a reason and that if BT know it has been bypassed they would insist on replacing it?

I would turn round to the letting agency and tell them while you where talking to BT to try and get the phone and ADSL problem resolve that they said they think someone has interfered with the writing and want to send an engineer around to make sure it not a fault with the building wiring.


Then mention the BT may charge a fee if the faults not their side, but say you think thats not likely as they did send a full trained telle comms engineer to have look them selves

do it via email so you have it in writing, also talk to the local CAB or Community Legal Advice. They are the experts on what repsosiuble for what