Ok long story short, we had a phone line with BT, around 6 weeks old. We then sign up for talktalk broadband. They say the line rental will be switched to them, I say will this be a problem with BT, they say not.

Anyway its all gets set-up etc, then I get a bill from BT last week for over £100 as a cancellation fee due to talktalk switching the line rental to them. Apparently the fine is all of the payments I would have made! (£11pm over 11 months0.

Is this fair/lawful?

Depends what your service contract says.

I think BT have a minimum term of 12 months – that’s what they rold me when I signed up, and it’ll be in the contract.

All BT contracts are 12 months (it’s usually pretty clear in the contracts to) and I believe talktalk should have informed you of this …

Did you check with BT before you left them to see if they charge?

No, is my guess.

S’pose you might be able to wriggle out of talk talk contract, they appear to have told you a big one.

Aye, depends if you signed up for a minimum length contract – check all your paperworks.

All BT contracts are 12 months

Except the ones that are 18 months (most of their broadband contracts used to be)

That is why Talk Talk advised us to sign up with the post office to get the line installed then switch to them rather than going direct to BT as the post office don’t have a minimum contract. In the end the post office gave us a good deal for broadband, too, so we stayed with them.

If you want to try and get out of the talk talk contract, check BT will take you back and refund the money or credit your account first, as you don’t want to end up back with BT but they still won’t give the money back!

Yup, all BT contracts are 12 months, IIRC from a year ago it was all very obviously spelled out in the forms for signing up.