Rich you are more or less correct it's BT Openreach that own the lines - if they decide to take a line away from a property externally they can do this and they are then able to charge the 'new homeownner / customer' to have a line re-installed to the property. Yaaaay
I then have to have a 12 month contract with them for line rental, however we use Sky for all of our calls and broadband etc.
Our whole mess so far has been that as from the 25th Sept all my calls were routed via Virgin, but BT sent me a bill with calls on as late as the 20th Oct. Apparently even though i was paying Virgin from this date for an all inclusive call package, any calls that i can not prove are duplicates on my virgin bill (most are non itemised) then i owe BT as BT have a 'duel line' and even though i only pay them for line rental i owe them for these calls regardless of what i pay virgin and what my letters from them state. We discussed this with them on the 8th Jan and the gentleman at BT we spoke to said he was putting my bill on hold indefinatley until i resolved such matter with virgin. He forgot to do this and subsequently when i called about moving home on Thursday the line was cut off half way through the conversation. I then wlaked for 20 mins in the snow to find a phonebox, to be rudely cut off again. I requested a call back to
DP's mobile - which i got, then that lady cut me off, back to the phone box (again walking in the snow at 35 weeks pg). Spoke to a lady who would not call me back on mobile and again hung up (at neither point was i rude but they just honestly couldn;t be bothered to listen adn just wanted me to pay a bill). Then rang back and got through to a 'more helpful asst' who caled me back. BT kept saying that the guy i spoke to on the 8th Jan was incorrect telling me that and even though his notes on the system prove what i said she could not re-connect the phone until i paid the bill as he should never of agreed that. After arguing for over an hour her manager agreed to re-connect the line and hold the bill to dispute. It would take up to 24 hours to reconnect the line and i would have no problem calling the next day and getting my landline transferred to a new property. 24 hours later, phoneline still not rec-onnected so you guessed it back to the phone box. This time the lady told me the line was agreed to be re-connected after i paid the bill, spoke to her supervisor, then her manager who re-read the notes and realised that the line should of been re-connected but the manager i spoke to the day before had not actioned this. Another argument later and a promise of 1 months free line rental, they agreed to put my line back on with high priority, a manager would call me back by 9am the following morning to check this had been done and place an order for home move.
The line came back on but no call from said manager, called them to 'home move' and was told their was a restriction on the line and nothing would be done until disputed bill was paid. Back to square one.
(phoneline on to make and recieve calls but canot place orders, change orders etc etc) After
DP argues for yet another hour (as i was far too stressed and angry) a lady told him her manager would call me back.
A lady called me back but not the manager i was promised and she could only do and tell me the same as previous lady.
DP back on the phone for 1 hour and eventually the correct lady called him back. Told him that she would ensure the restriction was taken off fully, apologised and said would place an order for home move, took all details and that was the last we heard.
Until i phoned this morning to ask for new tel no for property and what date the line was likely to be connected by - to be told, the order had been placed but was not going anywhere as it was a silver line meaning no connection to the property they would have to send an engineer out at a cost of £123 as the line had been taken from the property 18-24 months ago as wasn't being used.
Had none of the previous problems of occurred on Thursday then all of this could of been dealt with sooner and an engineers appointment made sooner too!
But as we all know BT UNDERSTAND AND APOLOGISE, they know it is inconvenient that at my stage of pregnancy i have made a total of three trips to a phonebox in the snow and had one 35 minute conversation in -1 discussing the said problem at a payphone with no glass, because they had no callback time left, and that a total of 12 people could not do anything and three managers forgot to action what they had put in the system and promised But people do make mistakes!!!!!!
Oh and i'm still waiting for a call from the services team to let me know if they can get me an engineer out earlier as the manager i spoke to on Saturday said I WOULD DEFINATLEY AHV E A PHONELINE CONNECTED BY THURSDAY NO MATTER WHAT!!!!!
Oooops sorry - what a bloody long rant!!!
Great money makng scam eh? I love the fact i have to pay for a 'new line to be installed' but then also have to pay line rental for a line i have just 'bought'
. BT are such an awful company. I don't know how they manage to have so many customers when they treat everyone like 
I haven't ever come across anyone with a good word to say about them. We had a huuuuge row with them a little while ago - all their f 
Xx
I really hope that is not true!