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Charging BT for services sited on your property

Hermit
Hermit Posts: 7 Forumite
Part of the Furniture First Post Combo Breaker
in Phones & TV
Quite recently, our neighbour's landline telephone service was disrupted and a BT telephone engineer came out to fix the problem. The problem was traced back to a telephone pole siting on our property which delivered BT landline services to three housholds.

The engineer bacame quite rude when he found that the pole was also being used as a connection point to deliver electricity to one of our outbuildings - he mentioned that he intended to report us for illegal us of the pole.

Consequently, we intend charging BT for the use of our land to deliver their service. Does anyone have any experience in this matter?

A few years ago I read an artical in a journal/magazine (the name of which I can't remember) where someone was setting up a business to assist consumers like myself with charging utilities/energy/telecom organisations for services delivered across residential properties. Does anyone have any knowledge of this? Are there any websites with guideance?

Please help.

Regards,

Hermit
«1

Comments

  • redux
    redux Posts: 22,976 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Perhaps you should study the wayleave agreement
  • gt94sss2
    gt94sss2 Posts: 5,854 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Hermit wrote:
    Consequently, we intend charging BT for the use of our land to deliver their service. Does anyone have any experience in this matter?

    You will probably find your land deeds give BT permission to site its telegraph pole there - especially if was there befre you purchased the property.

    Otherwise, you may be entitled to what is called a 'wayleave' payment.

    You can always ask BT:

    BT Wayleaves Scanning Office
    Communications House
    Harlescott Lane
    Shrewsbury
    SY1 3AQ
    phone telephone: 0800 581525

    asking if there is a wayleave agreement in existence.

    Also googling 'BT wayleave' may bring up some organisations who may claim to be able to help you.

    However, you really shoudn't connect anything to the BT pole, whether you are getting paid or not - BT tend to take a dim view of their staff being electrocuted/killed when they climb telegraph poles..

    Regards
    Sunil
  • drek
    drek Posts: 85 Forumite
    gt94sss2 wrote:
    However, you really shoudn't connect anything to the BT pole, whether you are getting paid or not - BT tend to take a dim view of their staff being electrocuted/killed when they climb telegraph poles..

    now that sounds like gr8 way to deal with rude BT C.Services staff...............:beer:
  • normanmark
    normanmark Posts: 4,156 Forumite
    drek wrote:
    now that sounds like gr8 way to deal with rude BT C.Services staff...............:beer:

    you idiot.
  • david29dpo
    david29dpo Posts: 3,748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    we have a BT pole inside our boundary but bt put a wayleave on it years ago so no dose for me!
  • helen_benney
    helen_benney Posts: 1 Newbie
    can anyone tell me what a wayleave agreement is,i have a telegraph pole in my garden too
  • Heinz
    Heinz Posts: 11,191 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker Car Insurance Carver!
    helen_benney wrote: »
    can anyone tell me what a wayleave agreement is,i have a telegraph pole in my garden too
    Welcome to the MSE forums Helen.

    I think just entering the word wayleave into Google will give you all the information you require.

    Try the following link for starters: http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/networkinfo/developnetwork/wayleave.do
    Time has moved on (much quicker than it used to - or so it seems at my age) and my previous advice on residential telephony has been or is now gradually being overtaken by changes in the retail market. Hence, I have now deleted links to my previous 'pearls of wisdom'. I sincerely hope they helped save some of you money.
  • stephi283
    stephi283 Posts: 1 Newbie
    we have just had a man from a company called Utility Surveys Co. come to our door oet of the blue and offer to act for us in obtaining a wayleave from bt if sucessful he would expect £50 +vat from the lump sum of £145. Does that seem fair, I wasn't sure if it was a scam and I guess we'd never have known if he hadn't told us. But surely we could just go direct to openreach (bt) ourselves!:confused:

    any thoughts cheers Stephi
  • normanmark
    normanmark Posts: 4,156 Forumite
    stephi283 wrote: »
    we have just had a man from a company called Utility Surveys Co. come to our door oet of the blue and offer to act for us in obtaining a wayleave from bt if sucessful he would expect £50 +vat from the lump sum of £145. Does that seem fair, I wasn't sure if it was a scam and I guess we'd never have known if he hadn't told us. But surely we could just go direct to openreach (bt) ourselves!:confused:

    any thoughts cheers Stephi

    You're right Stephi, don't bother with the man. Its a simple enough process to deal with Openreach to get wayleave issues sorted. You don't need no middle man :)
  • Incisor
    Incisor Posts: 2,271 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    stephi283 wrote: »
    we have just had a man from a company called Utility Surveys Co. come to our door oet of the blue and offer to act for us in obtaining a wayleave from bt if sucessful he would expect £50 +vat from the lump sum of £145. Does that seem fair, I wasn't sure if it was a scam and I guess we'd never have known if he hadn't told us. But surely we could just go direct to openreach (bt) ourselves!:confused:

    any thoughts cheers Stephi
    Of course you can go there yourself. I would advise it rather than use one of these opportunists. You only need to recover less than £58,75 to be out of pocket
    After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writers Union
    Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people
    Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only
    By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government
    To dissolve the people
    And elect another?
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