How to provision for a tenant

I am trying to sort out a problem for my Brother who is renting out his Annexe. It is a new build so no existing connection. I have arranged with BT to provide for a phone connection and is due to be connected next month. I have asked for it twice to be on the basic phone service with no long contract. So far after two days the order on the BT site has not been updated to show the change.

However the real problem is that we do not wish to get involved apart from the initial setup. We need the Tenant to be responsible for all the billing for phone and broadband on a rolling 1 month contract. I think that if BT is used then it is only an 18 month contract - don't know if they are able to cope with the Tenant changing at 6 monthly intervals.

I have been in contact with ADSL24 who have such a plan but cannot see if they are truly competitive with BT. But I am assuming that if BT cannot accept a change of user then you are into a cease and provide. I am also not sure if the prices shown on the BT site include VAT. They show a line rental of £10/month but I thought it was more than that.

Any help or ideas would be welcome.

Hi

Your best bet is not get involved at all; let the tenant order the phone line.

Tell the tenant to try the post office for cheapest instalation at the moment; £0


http://www.postoffice.co.uk/sites/default/files/New%...

Ian

Edited by ian007jen (Thu 19-Jan-12 20:58:16)

Your brother might want to seek advice on putting restrictions in the tenancy agreement about entering into long-term contracts for phone, broadband and other utilities; they might cause problems if they still have months to run after the tenant leaves.

Any new line with BT is subject to an 18 month contract.

Let tenant sort out his own line. Any contract is between them and the supplier.

In reply to a post by gdavid:

I am also not sure if the prices shown on the BT site include VAT. They show a line rental of £10/month but I thought it was more than that.

All BT Residential, if that's what you are referring to, prices are VAT inclusive, as they are required by law to be.

Line rental is £14.60 pm if paid with normal billing. However you can pay 1 year in advance with Line Rental Saver, equivalent to £10 pm.

Thanks to all who replied.

Your comments are taken on board and will re-arrange this with another company who are happy to have a regular change of user and leave the Landlord out of the loop.

Broadband could still be an issue, as when his phone gets ceased the broadband also ceases, and there will probably be a cease charge of £29 for that from the ISP. And that's if you are lucky! What if the tenant has taken a 12 or 18-month contract?

What if, even worse, the tenant takes full LLU on Sky or TalkTalk? Or aren't they available at that exchange?

I think by far the safest course of action is the rent to include an "anytime" phone and either an unlimited broadband or a monthly contract one such as Plusnet where excess usage can, in effect, be prevented.

In reply to a post by gdavid:

Thanks to all who replied.

Your comments are taken on board and will re-arrange this with another company who are happy to have a regular change of user and leave the Landlord out of the loop.

Not sure what you mean there. Do you mean a contract with the landlord but billing the tenant?

If so, what happens if the tenant defaults on payment and disappears? The company will go for the landlord. Also see my post not long ago about who the broadband is with.

What proportion of tenants aren't going to want broadband anyway? By your brother providing and including it they have it immediately on moving in. That has to be a selling point rather than them having to wait for connection, possibly of the line itself - which could put off more than are lost by the higher base rental.

Thanks for your help. I think whatever option you choose there can be a problem.

In the end I have got rid of the BT involvement and what a pain it was to deal with them.

I have found a company who is happy to have the line in the tenants name which takes us out of the loop. At the end of the tenancy there will be no cease - just a change of name from one tenant to another. The letting agency is writing in a clause to exclude entering contracts and changing to LLU.

That's looking better. What about the broadband though? Do you mean that is also provided by the "line" company? That would be OK, though I expect you would have to pay during any discontinuity of tenant? (The ISP will be getting charged).

The tenants can just set things up

If they choose FULL LLU the next tenant will have to cease and reprovide. Again - their problem not yours.

I don't see why you're worrying about it...

If you put the bill in your name and bill the tenants - if they run up a huge bill and don't pay it's your credit affected.

If they have it setup in their name and don't pay - it's their credit.

& this allows people to choose which ISP they want. Not everybody wants to be with whatever ISP for whatever reason. This is how things are normally done in the rental sector anyway

Gawd! How unreal can you get?

Agreed! The contracta for the phone and BB will be in tenant's name and any bills will follow them.

My daughter had phone and AOL LLU at previous place. New tenants put in new BB order with some other ISP and she received email from AOL that a new order had been placed on her line and so they were ceasing BB and crediting her the remainder of the month to her bank account. As far as phone was concerned she received bill for remaining period on her own BT a/c which carried forward onto her new phone line.

EDIT: Don't forget the suppliers have the bank account/credit card details of the departing tenant to make any outstanding charges to.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 20-Jan-12 19:12:10)

I rent 2 student properties and 2 multiple occupancy houses

Often people arrive with a contract still tied to them eg had sky at the previous house and have 6 months left. Much easier to let them get on with it & not control it.

Just my feelings.

I think it's more realistic to allow people to keep their current ISP than have to buy themselves out as I restrict it kind of thing

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

The tenants can just set things up

If they choose FULL LLU the next tenant will have to cease and reprovide. Again - their problem not yours.

I don't see why you're worrying about it...

If you put the bill in your name and bill the tenants - if they run up a huge bill and don't pay it's your credit affected.

If they have it setup in their name and don't pay - it's their credit.

& this allows people to choose which ISP they want. Not everybody wants to be with whatever ISP for whatever reason. This is how things are normally done in the rental sector anyway

Totally agree with you. From past experience providing for the tennant can be very problematic.
Let them provide and when theres problems you will be glad its not you trying to resolve issues.
We had a tenant who did alot of file sharing. Then we had one of those nasty letters from BE informing us of the tennant downloading some copyright material. We were warned that the bill payer is responsible for the connection.
Also if theres a problem with the connection or line the ISP will only talk to the bill payer to resolve issues.
It will be the landlords time to go around and resolve the issues.

Let the tennant have the choice on who they want to goto.

Seems I'm wrong .

For instance, XRaySpeX's case. That sounds like his daughter was no longer in contract. So no problem.

However, there's no possible argument I can raise against what ukhardy07 & BP1 say.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

For instance, XRaySpeX's case. That sounds like his daughter was no longer in contract. So no problem.

Yes, she had been with AOL for years. But even if she hadn't, they would have charged her bank account, not the landlord's, for the early termination fees.

EDIT: it's all a matter of just who are the parties to the contract; any other parties, even at the same address, are not involved and therefore not liable.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 20-Jan-12 23:22:11)

Which leaves us with the scenario we frequently see on here. A line with a dial tone and an ISP tag, but no way of finding out who either is with. It seems many ISps are still ignorant of how to get that sorted out, and the tag removed.

If I moved into a tenancy I would expect the landlord to sort it.

My alternative would be to order a new line a nd let that one stew .

Well it seems to have gone smoothly for the new tenants at my daughter's old place. AOL acceded to to the new order and wrote to her, I suppose, in case she wanted to object. Isn't it a bit like slamming the phone? BT write to you in case you want to say it's wrong.

It is very likely there was no dial tone as she probably told BT to cancel the old line when she ordered the new one. She never had to pay a connection fee on the new one, so it must have been an existing line.