Would you pull out of this house purchase?

[ZazuMoon]

We have made an offer on a house built in 2016. Enquired during viewings about broadband and were told by the sellers it was connected. It turns out this is false and there is no connection and not even a phone line. There is no infrastructure at all. When BT installed the fibre to the door on the development the sellers refused it, the only ones on the estate to do so. As there is no infrastructure or ONT box at the property there is no serial number with which BT can help us. BT tells us to contact open reach for an ONT and open reach tells us without an ONT and general infrastructure they can’t do anything. Sellers and estate agent seem to think it is just a case of putting standard broadband in which is worse than what we have now in our much older property. They are unwilling to take any action to solve the issue. I don’t want to risk waiting until exchange of contracts before discovering we can’t get fibre to the premises. DH and I both need this broadband as we work from home one day per week. WWYD?

Update- we viewed the house we liked from this morning and it is exactly what we were looking for all along! I just hope they accept our early offer and don’t try to wait for a bidding war.
And it has internet. We checked 🙂

fingers crosedOP ^^

i would have said pull out of the other one too - people who lie about this, the house will be a nightmare!!

So glad you've found another house as I was going to say I would have pulled out from the other.

Fingers crossed for the house you viewed today.
The vendors of the other house sound totally weird.

I’m surprised at all the people saying they wouldn’t buy a house without broadband. What about all the houses lived in by older people who don’t want it? Would that be such a deal breaker?
Yes, how would I watch Netflix?!

Brilliant news about the house viewing today!

I have read the thread and also advise pulling out tbh - we rented a house which had no current landline or broadband and it was more of a pain than I anticipated to get it all back! It had previously had both services so the infrastructure was there but we found it was impossible to get broadband because we didn't already have a landline. We found an offer from Virgin Media that included installation (connecting the wires to the box again) of a landline and broadband and got it that way. But the issue seemed to be the lack of landline really, all the other offers included a swap of services not installation/reconnection.

I’m surprised at all the people saying they wouldn’t buy a house without broadband. What about all the houses lived in by older people who don’t want it? Would that be such a deal breaker?

There is usually landline so there is a chance of broadband. But if I saw house with no provision whatsoever, I too wouldn't buy it unless it was otherwise PERFECT and price reflected the cost of getting connected.

We're in a similar position. Previous owner declined fibre, now BT say it's mot available in our area (because their rollout is complete), despite the fact that both our neighbours have it. Openreach are not allowed to speak to customers anymore. Best BT can suggest is that we approach our local council...

I can’t quite believe the nicest house we’ve seen for months just happened to appear today when we were tearing our hair out over the internet situation.
Sickofrain I’m so sorry you are in a similar situation. What you have described is what we concluded would happen. There is no chance the council will do anything as they have not adopted any of the roads around the development. I’ve been trying to explain to the sellers via the estate agent that as the rollout is finished and they don’t even have a land line it’s not as simple as getting BT to pop back in whenever we feel like it.

You obviously don't want the house and are looking for a reason to pull out. Pul out. You will keep finding things that are problematic and feel less and less happy about the house.

Do the sellers a favour. They will find somone who likes the house. You will find a house that you love. Better for everyone and nothing to agonize over. Just do it. No need to justify it or blame anyone.

Found the owner!

😂

Yes, how would I watch Netflix?!

My house only had BT. I had Virgin fitted the day we moved in. They hadn’t supplied the house before.

Thanks again everyone. Your replies and experiences have been really helpful in allowing us to definitely pull out of this house. I would like to hope there would be a lesson learned on the sellers’ part in this but they are apparently buying another new build somewhere else 🤦🏼‍♀️

I'd never buy a house without it

OP, even if you hadn't found a much better house, I would pull out because the vendors are more than shifty and just cannot be trusted by lying to you from the off about the house being connected. It's totally beside the point that some elderly house owners might not require the Internet, most of us do and if it is job-related then it has to be fast. Plus there are other issues, breach of planning permission with the door in the garage, failure to keep up a regular service of the boiler, all of that points to people who did not even do the minimum upkeep. God knows what else might turn up. You are totally justified to walk away.

Congratulatins OP 🌺

Good luck with your new property, good choice to withdraw.

What did they say when you pulled out?

We would pull out for this without a doubt. Good luck with your new house, fingers crossed it all works out.

I had Virgin fitted the day we moved in

Did Virgin actually lay a new cable from the street to the house though? Because I think Virgin have cabled and non-cabled areas, and in non-cabled areas they use exactly the same lines as BT, Sky etc.

As I understand it, the correct procedure for getting fibre to the home installed is:-

1. Be in an area where it is supported, 95% of the country it is not, but in OP's case this clearly would not have been a problem.
2. Contact an ISP who supports it, unless there has been a change since I last checked, BT is the only big name ISP who do. (Sky said they were going to when I last looked, not sure if they've started yet.)
3. The ISP will organise for Openreach to lay a cable from the street to the house.

The above procedure works even in old houses, in the few areas where this type of connection is available.

It's possible that to get someone who knows how to deal with an FTTP order you might have to call a different number than the normal part of BT that expects every property to have a copper line. This is just speculation on my part. The BT fttp availability checker below should have a linked page somewhere telling you the correct number to call.

www.bt.com/broadband/full-fibre

The fact that OP says BT told them to contact Openreach makes me think they were dealing with the wrong part of BT, who didn't know what they were talking about. Openreach does not deal with the public, as far as I know.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think I had some marketing material recently that Sky are now supporting fttp. (I am in an fttp area.)

It also make no sense that Openreach told them they need an ONT before they can do anything, Openreach are the only company that can installs the bloody ONT! But it's less surprising that an Openreach person at the end of the phone doesn't know what they're talking about, as they are not in the business of fielding calls from the public, as far as I know. I believe orders for ONTs can only come to Openreach via ISPs. (Any maybe builders of new-builds!)

Disclaimer: my "expertise" is based entirely on what I've learned as a customer when my area was upgraded to fttp recently. (I'm not with BT though.)

I am glad you have found a better house. We had to raise £12,000 (I did it) from the neighbours to get Openreach to put the right kind of power to our local BT copper wire box a few streets away and Openreach paid £24,000 after 10 years of trying to get faster internet. My oldest son go on to the issue and eventually was put in touch with an Openreach master fixer external consultant who got to the bottom of the issue - wrong kind of power to the local box. That work was then done (and nicely most neighbours paid about £250 each even though without paying they would also have got it if enough others paid). This is outer London not outer Hebrides. we have no underground cable either so it comes from the box which is 4 miles from the telephone exchange and then from the box over over head wires to each house over the 4 streets up our way served by that box.

Random, I am not sure cables are always used. in our bit of outer London the 37 MB broadband definitely only comes over the copper over head wires not from that local box via underground cabling to the houses.

My son bought a new build Bellway house at the end of last year. It took him about 2 or 3 weeks to get broadband in there from BT but I presume the building company had ensured all the basic infrastructure was already ready for those who wanted to get it in - he certainly raised the issue very early on in the buying process. He also has no mobile signal at his house and has rejected a landline as it was going to be £20 a month extra.

Quite a few people near me when planning to buy a house on the estate where I live would contact me, as Chairman, to ask about broadband before they decided to buy as it was so crucial for work. In fact I pay two separate broadband wifi charges to have it on two separate telephone lines in case one goes down it is that important to me for my business which is virtually all by email and phone, that paying an extra £60 a month for that insurance of hopefully always having one line if the other is down is worth it.

doesn't sound terrible to me... could you get a fully costed estimate for rectifying the problem?