Moving phone number to different house

[#1]

Hello!
My mother has Plusnet Broadband running on a phone line she has had for 44 years.  She is shortly to move away from the area completely.  I would like to take the old phone number over.  I live in the house next door to my mother's old house and currently have no phone or broadband to my house at all, although there is a physical line installed.
I'm assuming that as far as the exchange is concerned this shouldn't be a problem, however I do have some questions:
Is it Plusnet or BT who would carry out the work?
Would I be obliged to transfer the Plusnet account as well?
Whom should I ring/email to instigate the process?
Thanks!
Geoffrey

[#2]

Probably best to get her to do a "house move" to your property, then take it over yourself at a later date. 

[#3]

I assume that you would want to phone plus broadband as Plusnet don't offer phone on its own.
Until the staff respond I would suggest that this would be one way to do it
Transfer the phone plus broadband to your house using the house move system then after it has been moved request a change of account holder
Then your mother would start a new phone at the new property with or without broadband
The downside to this is that she would lose the username but you would retain it. However as I assume - perhaps unjustifiably - that your mother doesn't use the broadband and that it is you who uses it that would be an advantage not a disadvantage

[#4]

Thanks for the very swift response!
In fact my mother does use the broadband, but she's considering moving over to BT at her new place so she's not worried about taking the account with her.  It sounds like the simplest way forward will be to transfer the account and then to change the name of the account holder later?  Or would I effectively have to start a new account with Plusnet?
Geoffrey

[#5]

Just change the name of the account holder - no problem in doing that

[#6]

Hello again!
Mother rang Plusnet today.  It's fine to move the number, but they said she'd have to enter into a new contract because Plusnet will have to pay BT to carry out the work and that's the only way they can guarantee to get their money back.  That's probably fair enough, otherwise there would be nothing to stop me from swapping immediately to another provider.  But it is annoying that I can't just go to BT direct and give myself that choice.  In fact I'm probably happy enough with Plusnet for the time being.

[#7]

Taking the hypothetical case of being with BT, that would be with BT Retail who are an ISP just as Plusnet are. BT Retail would order the required changes from BT Wholesale and BT Openreach again just as Plusnet do and pay those commercial arms the appropriate fees which they'd either pass on to the customer or wave in return for a contract extension.
The charges and/or durations from BT Retail might differ but otherwise "going to BT" is the same as "going to Plusnet". This reflects the Ofcom requirement for "equivalence" in the market.