Q. My friend and I have lived in a rental house for the last three years. We recently renewed our TV/phone/broadband with a single provider on a two-year contract. However, our landlord then told us that he was selling up. We were not too disappointed, my friend has plans to emigrate and I want to travel for a bit. However, the provider is telling us there is a cancellation fee of over €1,200. Obviously neither of us want that hanging over our heads. What can we do?
Dear Reader,
This is a difficult situation. Firstly, you should ascertain whether you are in a ‘cooling off’ period. You are allowed a period of 14 days to cancel the contract if you signed up online or over the phone, 30 days if you signed at a door-to-door sale. There is no cooling off if you enter into the contract in a shop or retail environment. If you are within these periods, you are entitled to cancel your contract for any reason.
If your service provider has sought to raise prices, generally speaking you are entitled to a certain period of time to cancel the entire service.
Outside of these time periods – there is no automatic right to cancel a TV/phone/broadband copntract. Indeed, most service providers specifically outline that you are obliged to make the full payments in the event that you seek to cancel early for whatever reason, including if you are leaving the property. You would therefore be liable to pay the full amount in your contract.
You should examine whether you are getting the minimum service as required by the contract. Is the service reliable, are you obtaining the broadband speeds that you were sold, etc. If not, you could lodge a complaint seeking to end the contract on this basis.
You would be entitled, under EU Regulations, to cancel the entire of your contract if only one portion was problematic – i.e. if your broadband speeds were slower than allowed, you could also cancel your phone and tv service.
Most service providers would generally let you ‘transfer’ the contract to another property. I note that you are moving abroad, but perhaps a friend or family member might be able to ‘take over’ the contract for their own home. This would require the consent of the service provider but might mean at least that monies are not wasted.
If you have any difficulty whatsoever, feel free to contact the Communications Regulator or your solicitor.
You should also ensure that no direct debits, or similar, have been taken for a service that has not yet been provided.