The problem is that NTL do not have a consistent policy on such things. When the customer retentions and moves departments relocated during the recent restructure, the policy towards house moves and disconnections also changed IIRC.
It used to be the case that if you were moving to a non-cabled area, that was that, NTL accepted the fault was theirs in not being able to provide you service, and waived the 12 month contract requirement.
However, my understanding is that some not so bright spark at NTL decided to classify NTL's off-net product offerings as being 'equivalent' to their on-net offerings, and therefore you are expected to take out NTL's equivalent off-net products and if you do not, they consider you in breach of the contract and within their rights to charge you for the remainder of the 12 months contract.
I queried the logic of compelling customers to take out a phoneline with BT so they could sign up with NTL off-net and whether we could do that but each time was told this is the new policy.
I don't know if this has since changed as I recently left NTL and it's possible they've had another rethink.
The problem is, when a policy has been in place for several years, everyone including the tech's and salesmen get familiar with it, then when it is changed, they aren't told as disconnections isn't considered an area they deal with, and so they carry on giving out outdated information, believing in good faith it to be true as they've not been told otherwise.
In your case it sounds like the rep believed your new address was serviceable so this wouldn't be an issue. It may be worth trying to get ahold of the original rep who told you it would all be okay and see if he/she remembers saying that. If NTL are satisfied you were given incorrect advice which you based your decision to buy on they will most likely honour it.
Alternatively you may be better off going through some of the NTL insiders/contacts we have working here to try and sort this out, as they have managed to work many miracles in the past and seem to have ways of getting things done which might not otherwise get done
