Why Special Treatment for Utility Suppliers?
I don't understand why it is that utility suppliers seem to live in a legal world of their own making.
The law otherwise is very clear when a contract is breached - as in early termination - the person suffering loss is entitled to recover that loss by way of "damages".
They have a duty to mitigate any loss and are only entitled to recover any actual loss; usually seen to be as the profit that has been foregone.
An example would be a caterer getting ready to cater for a wedding. In the event of cancellation that caterer isn't entitled to the whole fee. It would have to offset any notional loss by the value of the food it didn't buy, the wages it didn't pay and any other costs it otherwise didn't incur - with a duty to mitigate those costs as I said earlier - before sending in its bill.
That's the common law as it's been for 100s of years.
Which brings me to two points.
What is the ISP's loss in the event of early termination? It must be based on the lost profit element and not simply the monthly revenue it would otherwise have received.
And, secondly, why is the regulator giving legal advice (and to the contrary) when it is not a legally qualified body?
My advice? You don't want debt collectors calling you and you don't want your credit record affected so send a letter to BT, Plusnet whichever saying that you don't accept their charge, offer to pay the lost profit element. When that letter gets ignored send them a letter before action - it should explicitly say "Letter before Action" - insisting that they answer. When that gets ignored, pay the amount demanded and immediately issue proceedings in the Small Claims Court - see here https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview - for that amount. I guarantee you'll get your money back with the issuing fees almost by return.
Basically this could all be avoided if utility service contracts longer than 3 months were simply banned - that's long enough to recover the cost of a company's computer system recording the arrival and departure of a customer - and the separation of any goods supply into a separately priced and managed contract.
This is long overdue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
