Ownership of phoneline problem

P

panathon

Guest
Hi

Just purchased and moved into a second hand house and am trying to setup my phone and my broadband. The previous owner had smart broadband and never cancelled their account. They will not respond to requests to cancel it (presume they owe money or are under a contract to smart). I can't cancel it on their behalf. Eircom can't install a new line with an old one on the property owned by somebody else. They also can't take control of the existing line while it is contracted to smart.

Does anyone have any idea how I get out of this catch 22. I mean do I have any rights at all over the line that is running into my property. Satellite/wireless broadband isn't an option - I need to be connected with a specific provider for work purposes and I want a normal phoneline. Been in touch with both companies (smart and eircom) and they say previous owner MUST cancel account which doesn't look like a likely event.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks
Panathon
 
You could ask your solicitor to contact the previous owner (through their solicitor) and remind them that all previous debts and contracts must cease.

A little bit of extra pressure on the previous owner might help !

Just a thought, now that Smart are gone, is the contract considered broken ?
 
Smart haven't gone for broadband customers. There is a process for this and Smart are the ones who need to initiate it so keep hassling them
 
Chances are the previous owner was a smart telecom customer who was cut off without notice in October and was unable to switch to another provider because eircom wouldn't remove the temporary out of service block on the phone line. I am in the same position myself and have been without a phone now for over two months. I will hopefully get reconnected next week. In order to do this I rang 1901 (eircom customer service) and asked for the block to be removed from my phone line. This should be done next week and once I have my line restored I can then switch to another provider.

Check out the thread entitled "former smart residential customer now cut off" in the phone/dvd section of this site for more information.
 
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