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?

Pull out OP. I would.

Definitely pull out even if the new house doesn’t work out. If they lie/conceal that easily then you don’t want to find more horrors once you’ve moved in (she said bitterly)

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.

It’s a Virgin cable, not down a BT line. Virgin were already in our street but not to our house.

We have put an offer in on the house we viewed yesterday and had a counter offer back. It’s a little more than the other house but I think we will go for it and pull out from the other purchase tomorrow when that estate agent opens. It doesn’t seem from speaking to BT’s specialist team that open reach would come back to do one house as the rollout is complete and was carried out before the pavements were laid.

Update: we have pulled out of the original purchase and had our offer accepted on the new house. A totally different experience as all the answers to our questions were reassuring. Full boiler service history, no dodgy DIY, everything in the house maintained well and cared for. Plus- definitely internet!

I think that's the right decision OP - hope the rest of the process runs smoothly for you and good luck in your new internet-enabled home!

I doubt the original vendors will understand the issue about the internet, and I probably wouldn't myself tbh if I hadn't had a similar issue and the infrastructure was all there for us as the house had been connected before - I can't imagine how much harder it would have been otherwise!

Great news OP ... congratulations 🎉

Thank you! ☺️

Did you tell that previous ones why you pulled out? You should, maybe they will pull their heads out of their arses.
Congrats!

If you pull out of this purchase, you could always rent short term. Don't put pressure on yourself.

Erm... @FTMF30 5th post above you is OP saying they pulled out. 6th is saying they put offer in elsewhere.

Huge congratulations!
No internet would be a deal breaker for me, I wouldn’t even go to view it

Pull out. House is unsellable now unless this can be sorted. Its not your dream house. Let it go

Well done op x

I would make it a condition of the purchase. My neighbours built a new house and they came out happily enough to put it in, but as the house isn't a new build not sure how much effort or money it will entail.

Just read you've pulled out, good news. Hopefully they will sort it before selling, good job you were switched on enough to know it would be problematic.

My mobile hub (Huawei, no landline or BT connection at all) costs me £22 a month for unlimited data.

I wfh sometimes online, I have netflix etc, and it all works just fine.

Butterwhy thank you. I’m hoping they will learn from this and at least have a landline installed so that a purchaser can have dial up. I do feel for whoever purchases it- we are both lawyers so know the right questions to ask, whereas another purchaser may just assume it has internet, or a phone line, which would be an entirely reasonable assumption.

@Zaphodsotherhead there is no landline and no mobile signal so a dongle wouldn’t work. We tried everything before we gave up.

We were very lucky to find a house we both liked better so quickly after months and months of looking. Hopefully this one works out!

I've been in your shoes, the internet wasn't the issue it was other things.

Then I got a phone call to say Dontbite there's a house I think you'll love...

More bedrooms, it suited us MUCH more and was exactly what we were after. It was more expensive and needed love but it was right.
Been here 3 months and it's amazing.

I hope it all goes smoothly!

Thank you @DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou for your story. I love your user name- if only my 6 month DS would heed that advice!