Legal advice regarding putting a satellite dish up

Lilly1977

Hi everyone

We have just bought a flat and have just found out there is no cable or satellite tv at all. We have exchanged already, although the seller did say to us there was cable when we viewed the flat, this was not in writing and we took his word for it.

The flat is in a converted church with 17 flats, there are 3 floors and we are on the 2nd floor up. In the lease it says 'no television arial or antennae allowed' - the lease dates back to 1986. However there is a big communal tv arial on top of the church.

We fully understand that the leaseholders do not want lots of dishes erected and we are prepared to pay more for a bespoke satellite dish that blends with the surroundings, or for one to be erected on the roof that is not visible from the street.

We have leasehold and share of freehold. The management company have told us that we are not allowed to erect a dish, and that even though some flat have cable, ours does not and is not able to. We feel this is grossly unfair and are willing to fight and contest this to the end.
Apparently the director lives in the building and is adamantly against satellite dishes being installed on the building.

We feel that living in London in this age of 2012, to not be able to receive satellite or cable is ridiculous, especially as parents to two children and living in a country where there is grim weather most of the year!

The church is not in a conservation area and is not a restricted or listed building.

Please can anyone give us any legal advice and do we have a leg to stand on?!?

diable

If you are willing to fight and contest this to the end then I would advise against getting advice from here and to pay and see a solicitor/lawyer who specialises in this field.

If you end up going to court on this you may find it's cheaper to move then to be screwed over on the fee's

olly300

Sky do a block of flats satellite dish where the entire block can get their TV from one dish placed on the roof. However I don't know how much this costs and how many of the flats need to sign up.

You are better off:
1. Finding out the cost of this for your block,
2. Canvassing your neighbours who can't get cable TV to find if the dish was there whether they would use it, or whether they want individual dishes on the roof
3. Then deciding to fight the director of the company.

As a member in share of freehold property you will have meetings where you can all vote.

Therefore your aim should be to get as many people on your side as possible with their names before arguing your case. Some people won't get involved in a fight there as there are probably one or two others who will, particularly if they don't like the director.

I live in a block of flats and found if people don't communicate what they want to the neighbours and the management company are against it then they have no chance of getting what they want.In my case this has ranged from being able to have pets to doors.

fwor

Have you checked the freehold deeds to see if there is a restrictive covenant in it forbidding satellite dishes? If there is, I doubt you will get anywhere trying to fight it.

Are you certain you can't get cable? It would be fairly unusual for a building converted in the mid 80's not to have some form of flexible cabling from a common area into each flat for telecomms wiring.

Hintza

Lilly1977 wrote: »

In the lease it says 'no television arial or antennae allowed'

Well if this was a deal breaker you should really have checked it out in detail first. I would say this is not uncommon on this type of building.

You all might need to talk to each other and play Monopoly if the Freeview channels are not enough.

Hintza

31 January 2012
Sky to launch new internet TV service
Sky today announced plans to launch a new service allowing customers to watch some of its most popular content over the internet. Taking advantage of the rapid growth in broadband-connected devices, and building on Sky’s experience in multi-platform TV, the new service will be an additional choice for people who don’t currently subscribe to a pay TV service.

Launching in the first half of 2012, the new service will provide instant and simple access to a range of Sky content, including hundreds of films from Sky Movies. Giving consumers even more choice and flexibility, the service will be available to anyone in the UK with a broadband connection.

Lilly1977

fwor wrote: »

Have you checked the freehold deeds to see if there is a restrictive covenant in it forbidding satellite dishes? If there is, I doubt you will get anywhere trying to fight it.

Are you certain you can't get cable? It would be fairly unusual for a building converted in the mid 80's not to have some form of flexible cabling from a common area into each flat for telecomms wiring.

No I haven't checked the freehold deeds - I will so thank you.

Our particular flat can't get cable. A few flats do have cable though so I don't know why ours doesn't. Apparently the cable company said we'd have to feed the cable up two floors through 2 other flats which is unlikely as we'd need permission from them - But we have asked the management company.

We have only just emailed them today for the first time, I wanted to check if I had all my bases covered by asking here first.

Thanks for your reply.

Lilly1977

Thanks for your info Hintza

No it wouldn't have been a deal breaker as the location and school catchment area came first of course. When the seller said yes there's cable, we had no reason not to believe him. And naively perhaps we didn't question it further as honestly I thought most places these days would have access to either!

SKy did tell us about this new Internet streaming thing but as it's so new you can only get a few movies from it they said - but I haven't personally checked it out myself so we will do that.

Thanks

olly300

Lilly1977 wrote: »

No I haven't checked the freehold deeds - I will so thank you.

Our particular flat can't get cable. A few flats do have cable though so I don't know why ours doesn't. Apparently the cable company said we'd have to feed the cable up two floors through 2 other flats which is unlikely as we'd need permission from them - But we have asked the management company.

I don't understand why the cables need to go through the other flats in the building as cable connections come from the outside in the street.

The cable on the building where I live comes from the street connection under the pavement and front garden the same as if you have a house, however then the cables run vertically up the side of the building up to the floor level of the top flat. The cable wires run along the same area as the TV aerial wires but are neater.

I only know because when I got cable connected in my flat the guy went outside to see where he was suppose to connect to, came back and drilled a hole right out to the exterior. So obviously I went to see what he was connecting to.

Likewise my friend who had cable who lived in a different block and on the top floor, you could clearly see the cables running up and along the walls of her building. In my block all the living rooms are in the same places on top of each others there as in hers they were all over the place.

All flats that have been built/converted before the mid-90s seem to have cable in my area there as the newer developments don't even on the ground floor. This is even if houses in the same development have cable.

It may have something to do with the big roll outs that happened where as cheaper and quicker just to roll it out to houses, even though people in flats are captive markets for cable as most freeholders don't allow satellite dishes.

rustyboy21

Can't see why you cannot have cable installed, it doesn't need to go inside, until it gets to your flat.

I have virgin cable, which comes in through my lounge wall, a little orange box is on the wall then all the cables come inside.

I have cable broadband also, that's upstairs in my office,. It connects into the orange box, runs around the outside of the house up to the rear bedroom and enters the wall there to the bband socket.

Why not ask the cable co , if they do coloured cable which will blend into the brickwork? That may help in pushing your point with the director.

Bet the Director has cable in his flat !

southcoastrgi

the management company is god as you are finding out now & prob will find out more later, you could get a few of you together to contest it but if it is an outside management co eg you don't run it yourselves & they really don't want it, then it isn't gonna happen.