So I have read that the move in standard is to have a working phone line....

[VanillaPumpkin]

Does that mean it should be connected???
I have searched and searched to see if we can claim the £110 it will cost us to connect the phone when we move. Can't find anything.
Has anyone moved into a quarter where the phone line was not connected? Did you have to use your disturbance to cover the costs?
My phone line people have said we only have to pay so much as there has been no line there for longer than three months.....
What do you think?

can you not say that you will leave and go to another company if they dont connect it for cheaper.

haggling with phone/internet companys usually pays off. i suppose this is what your disturbance allowence should go towards but you are not even gettting that are you?

No, no disturbance (don't deserve it )
They sort of implied that this is what BT charge them.
We are resigned to paying it tbh, but wondering if there is any come back. Drusilla mentioned we might be able to claim the charges back on another thread. I am sure we would be exempt as we have asked to move but......
Always worth checking allowances ime.
Thanks.

Hi, don't often post but when we moved into our MQ there was no phone line and we paid to have it connected. When the first bill came through showing the connection fee we had to pay it and then pass the bill onto DHE who eventually refunded us the connection charge and sent us a copy of the bill back (they had to keep the original). Not sure if that is policy everywhere but it certainly was how they worked it on our new build estate. Afterall anyone subsequently moving into the property will benefit by you having previously had the line connected.

Hope that helps

Oh meant to add that we didn't qualify for disturbance allowance either as we were moving from our own home into our first MQ.

Thank you. Looks like it might be worth a try then. I will get DH to ring and ask when he books the march out.

Message withdrawn

Ooh, interesting. Thank you.

I have emailed the AFF housing woman, as I'm sure I read this in the AFF journal, but I got an out of office untill 11 Aug message back. What Lemonadesparkle says ties in exactly with what I remember reading. I will let you know what the AFF says when she is back in the office.

I have searched the DE site but cannot find anything, although that is hardly surprising! What branch of forces are you vanilla?

Just to perhaps give you a little more information that may help, I have looked through my original paperwork (so anal with stuff like that) and have discovered that they paid us the £106.37 connection charge plus the £18.61 VAT so total = £124.98 This was refunded using a MOD Form 1108 Miscellaneous Personal Payment System (MPP) Authority for Payment and came as a personal cheque.

Hope that it may be of some use to you, although realise that JPA has since been introduced as this was August 2006.

Thank you very much ladies.
DH is RAF. I have searched the DE website and tried the Defence website and AFF and our RAFFF people website too.
I might call DE tomorrow before I tell the phone people to go ahead. We are with the Post Office and they only want £110 rather than BT's charge of £125 so that is something....

we've always paid the connection charge out of disturbance allowance...

Here, we are all moving on the corner of Camp where we live, the quarters are being refurbished.

BT is charging £110.00 to every tenant! 140 houses!!!!!

We have been told we have to pay it out of disturbance.

Hmm, that does sound more likely to me. BT are on to a winner there aren't they. It can't exactly be hard work to connect a line .

dread to think! dh phoning today so will let you know from when I move as house been empty for a while

Message withdrawn

Hello
Thanks you. We are with the Post Office at the moment for our phone and broadband and so we decided to bite the bullet and stick with them (and we are tied into a broadband contract atm too...) They quoted £110, but we get to keep our number in that price too. I am a bit anti BT tbh...
I haven't tried to claim it back yet either. I will ask on Thurs when we march in . I am desperate to pack but we have no where to store the boxes and guests coming on Wed, so I have to wait and console myself with sorting out the garage. It will take us a week to move .
DH has finally sprung into action too and taken our full garage worth of plastic bottles to the tip at last. I think he has been in denial and now keeps asking me the questions I have been asking him for four weeks . It will all be fine .

Message withdrawn

Thank you! We got our guests to pick up a curry on the way over so that was easy .
Oh the stuff we had put in storage when we went to Cyprus was just embarrassing. We had so much rubbish we had to pay for the council to do a special collection from us as there was too much for us to get to the tip .

Just to let you know I had an email from the Housing person at the AFF today with a definitive answer re charges for connecting a landline and apparently you used to be able to claim it back but now can't. Grrrr!

Here it is:

Thank you for your enquiry and my apologies for the delay in replying but I have been away on leave.

Your memory is not deceiving you and we did publish an article about how to claim back the connection charges when you move in to a house that is not connected to the exchange. Unfortunately, earlier this year, a Defence Estates (DE) policy review decided that as these charges are included in the list of items covered by disturbance allowance, DE would no longer refund this expense.

I?m sorry the news is not more positive. I hope to include an article in the next Journal explaining the policy change.

With Kind Regards

Ali

Ali Willis

Housing Specialist

Army Families Federation

Tel: 01980 618773

Mil: 94344 8773

e-mail: [email protected]

Drusilla - Thank you so much for following this up for me. That is interesting. A £125 disturbance allowance bonus then for those who move into a recently occupied quarter and so don't need to pay it out . Oh well.
I have a few issues with DE as the curtains for eg do not belong to this house etc so I am still going to ask .
On the plus side I LOVE this house despite it shabby condition and fact the previous occupants can't have passed their march out with the walls how they are. I feel totally at home despite still having boxes around and no pictures up. It is a wonderful space with an amazing garden. (How the other half live ). Well worth all the hassle and the big clean I have to do at the old quarter this weekend.
Thank you!!!!