Connecting phone line when pole is in neighbour's garden

Moneyer

Just moved house, so asked Plusnet (old provider) if we could move our phone and broadband. They said yes, but it would require an engineer visit to reconnect the line and cost 49.99, which we accepted.

Engineer arrived and said the telephone pole was in a neighbour's garden, so he couldn't touch it without their permission. Worse, he couldn't tell exactly WHICH garden it was in. He tried the doors of various neighbours but got no answer, so went away having done nothing. Issues are:

(1) He said WE would have to negotiate access to the pole with the neighbour, and then get an engineer out again. Is this really our responsibility? I guess if a pole is sited in a garden then an access agreement must exist, but that will be with the phone company and not us, so I guess we can't enforce it. So what happens if the neighbours don't want an extra wire running over their garden and just say "no"?

(2) The engineer couldn't say whether we'd be charged extra for further visits. As I see it, Plusnet have given us a commitment to connect us at a price of 49.99 without caveats. Will they see it the same way, or are they likely to try and bill us for more? (If we had known in advance the price would be much higher we'd just have switched to cable, which is already connected to the house....)

We are in a suburban cul-de-sac, not the sticks, so rather surprised connecting a phone line is difficult! Any advice much appreciated....

Heinz

Sounds like BS to me. If the pole is there, Openreach must be able to climb it and work on the wiring.

Anyway, it's not your responsibility to negotiate on behalf of Openreach, it's their responsibility to complete the work their customer (Plusnet, not you) has tasked them with.

brewerdave

Absolute rubbish! The OpenReach engineer didn't want the bother; you will probably find that he has recorded " no-one at home" on his job sheet and you will get charged for another visit - get back on to Plusnet asap and record what happened.

Moneyer

Thanks for the advice, guys. In the engineer's defence, we've now worked out which garden the pole is in, and the only access to it is through the house. So I guess it really was impossible for him to get at the pole. The people there are very friendly and happy to allow access BUT they are never in during the day, so it will have to be outside office hours for them to let the engineer through! But following the advice here, we'll get onto Plusnet and make it clear we consider it is their/Openreach's problem to sort this out rather than ours....

DVardysShadow

Moneyer wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, guys. In the engineer's defence, we've now worked out which garden the pole is in, and the only access to it is through the house. So I guess it really was impossible for him to get at the pole. The people there are very friendly and happy to allow access BUT they are never in during the day, so it will have to be outside office hours for them to let the engineer through! But following the advice here, we'll get onto Plusnet and make it clear we consider it is their/Openreach's problem to sort this out rather than ours....

Hmm. How did they get the pole there in the first place? Carry it through the house? Even knowing how to get to it, it does not look like a good longterm prospect as the pole will need replacing sooner or later...

Old_Git

did the previous owners have a phone ,how did they manage it .

spike2012

This is similar to western power overhead poles, old installation. Often is the case that the poles were there before the houses OR, the poles are lifted in over properties with a crane.

asbokid

the utilities sometimes plant a tree when they can't gain access to erect a pole. they wait for it to grow to the right height, lop off all the branches, and string their wires from it.

Moneyer

Re how the pole got there, the neighbour's house is a semi which looks like it has been extended across a side driveway - I presume the pole was put in before the extension was built. Don't know about the previous owners of our house as it was a repo, but I guess they just used cable (we would have done the same if it we'd realised getting a normal line would be so much hassle!). The line must have been connected in the recent past though, as there is an socket in the hall marked Openreach.....

brewerdave

Moneyer wrote: »

Re how the pole got there, the neighbour's house is a semi which looks like it has been extended across a side driveway - I presume the pole was put in before the extension was built. Don't know about the previous owners of our house as it was a repo, but I guess they just used cable (we would have done the same if it we'd realised getting a normal line would be so much hassle!). The line must have been connected in the recent past though, as there is an socket in the hall marked Openreach.....

Surely if there is an Openreach socket there must be a BT line?
Have you followed the line fom this socket back to outside your house?? Is it ALREADY connected to the pole??

Belnahua

Sounds like total rubbish to me.

If there is a utility service in someone's property, it will be written into their house deeds that that utility has unlimited access to it, and does not need permission. Obviously it would be polite to ask, but the engineer has the perfect right to access it 24/7.

Sounds like the engineer simply couldn't be bothered as it meant doing some work!

I agree with the earlier posting, I bet he's put down not at home on his worksheet!