Opening a New Service to the Same Address

[Oasis712]

Hello,

I live in a rental property that has BT broadband. I do not pay for it; my landlord does.

Unfortunately, my landlord has recently passed away. I have been instructed by my rental company to take over paying for the wifi, which means I am planning to open a new service at the address in my name. (For a variety of reasons, I am unfortunately unable to transfer the landlord's account to my name.) 

My question is: will opening a new service immediately cause the old one to be cancelled? Or will it remain open until the new one takes effect? I am not interested in not having WiFi for two weeks while I wait for the activation, so I wanted to be sure before I open the new service. 

Any help is appreciated! I've searched the community to see if anyone else has asked this and turned up empty, but sorry if it's a repeat question.

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

No one can transfer someone else’s account into their name ( that’s unless it’s a bereavement and the surviving spouse is taking over the account ) ,

the thing to do is treat this as if you  were moving into a property and you  had no idea of the status of the address as far as existing broadband service ……you apply for service , as there is already a recorded working ‘line’ at the address , the process is a letter sent to the address in the name  of the account holder (in your case the landlord ) it effectively says someone wants to take over the service, and if that’s a mistake for them to get in touch to cancel that other persons order  , obviously the letter will go unanswered so the takeover takes place ….this should mean the landlord broadband service stays until your own service takes over  ….how the final bill for the landlords broadband account gets settled isn’t really your problem.