Email for apple ID still locked to deleted duplicate account
Hi folks - I had an old apple account lying dormant with my personal email as its ID. I also had an apple account with my work email as its ID. As my job requires a lot of travel time I get a phone package with unlimited calls and data so I got rid of my personal phone years ago. I am now moving companies and want to change my current apple account to my personal email. I couldn't do this whilst it was the apple ID for the old account so I deleted that account +/-4 weeks ago. However despite this when I try and update the apple ID on my current account to my personal email I still get the message 'this email is in use and not available'. Its not the end of the world as I can set up a dummy mail as login ID but if there was an easy way to sort this it would be awesome.
iPhone 7 Plus