BT/Openreach charging us for removing their cables

HeyBigSpender

I'm renovating a house and there are some large dodgy looking cables hanging off the back that were chucked up badly at some stage over the last 30 or so years. They are damaging my brickwork and we need to remove them so we can fix the back wall of the house. They hang across the windows of what will be my kids bedrooms and frankly they look dangerous. My electrician said I should ask BT to check if they are phone cables feeding the other houses in the terrace before we remove them.

So I phoned BT (Openreach.) Apparently it will cost 198 pounds just to get a BT(Openreach) engineer to stand there for a minute, look at them, and tell us whether or not they are BT cables. And then most likely it will cost us a fortune to get BT(Openreach) to move their dodgy cables off the back of our property. Even if I were inclined to just chop the things off (and I wouldn't as it wouldn't be fair to our neighbours if it is their phone line), then I would probably be liable for their repair and replacement.

It seems odd to me that their shoddy old cables are my responsibility even though we are not BT customers, in fact we don’t even have a landline. Openreach, unsurprisingly were resolute in their lack of sympathy for my situation. Any suggestions?

[Deleted User]

Why would 'phone cables feeding your neighbours be attached to your property?
It seems far more likely to be remnants of some cable extension to your own property.

It should be a simple matter to follow the course of the cables and see from where they originate and to where they continue on (if they do).

It also should not surprise you that Openreach charge for even potential removal of cables unlikely to be their responsibility as they are on your property.

It was apparently your "electrician" who suggested contacting BT, couldn't he tell you whether they are definitely phone wires?

Browntoa

my neighbours property has a BT cable fixed to their soffit which then feeds in to the property next to that via the normal Soffit/wall, not sure if its a flying wire as affixed to your wall



What are "flying wires"?
Under certain circumstances, Openreach is allowed to "fly wires" over an adjacent property from an existing pole without the need for a wayleave. This permission only applies providing we do not need to enter the property concerned to do so, that the wires are at a height of 3m or more, and that they do not interfere with the normal business on the property.

have a look at wayleaves

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/contactus/wayleaves/wayleaves.do

Wayleaves relating to apparatus already installed



Our Birmingham team deals with Wayleaves relating to apparatus already 'in situ', (i.e.: installed for three months or longer).

• To raise a new application on in situ cases please complete our ONLINE DECLARATION FORM FOR IN-SITU APPARATUS
• If you wish to enquiry about a Wayleave in relation to apparatus that has already been installed (In-Situ). Then please contact our Wayleaves In-Situ Team at [EMAIL="wayleaves.insitu@openreach.co.uk"]wayleaves.insitu@openreach.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Wayleaves archive searches
We also provide an archive search service which allows us to search for existing wayleave agreements from our extensive archive. If this is required please forward the location details to [EMAIL="archive.ripple@bt.com"]archive.ripple@bt.com[/EMAIL] who will be pleased to help

[Deleted User]

Browntoa wrote: »

my neighbours property has a BT cable fixed to their soffit which then feeds in to the property next to that via the normal Soffit/wall

I wasn't saying it's impossible, Browntoa, just that it's likely not Openreach who have responsibility even if they are 'phone cables.

HeyBigSpender

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

Why would 'phone cables feeding your neighbours be attached to your property?

Possibly because some of the terrace up to about 10 years ago all belonged to one owner.

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

It also should not surprise you that Openreach charge for even potential removal of cables unlikely to be their responsibility as they are on your property.

By anybody's calculation, £198 is pretty steep just to have someone look up and say "Yup. That's my wire."

It was apparently your "electrician" who suggested contacting BT, couldn't he tell you whether they are definitely phone wires?

Fair enough. To us they just look like big nasty chunky wires. He seems pretty certain that they are BT wires. I think he was worried about messing with them in case he caused disruption to neighbouring properties that would end up costing him or us money.

JimmyTheWig

HeyBigSpender wrote: »

To us they just look like big nasty chunky wires. He seems pretty certain that they are BT wires.

To some extent it doesn't matter too much whose wires they are. Do they go to your neighbours' houses?

[Deleted User]

HeyBigSpender wrote: »

By anybody's calculation, £198 is pretty steep just to have someone look up and say "Yup. That's my wire."

They just want to discourage you from calling them out unnecessarily. They won't take any responsibility anyhow.

HeyBigSpender

Yes they do go to our neighbours. We have only been dealing with this problem since this afternoon, so have yet to ask them if we can go in and look at where or what the wires go to in to in their properties. The electrician will be testing the wires over the next few days to see if they are live and we will ask our neighbours about it then.

Also there are a couple of BT box things flush with the ground (a bit like drain covers with numbers letters and the BT symbol on top) beside our house in the garden and I have no idea what they are or if they are still important to BT. We will have to at some stage do some digging around our property to solve some damp issues and this will affect these weird boxes.

Again, I'm presuming Openreach will demand 200 quid for us to ask them to look at their own boxes and tell us what they are, why they are there, and how much it will cost us to get them to move them off our property.

iniltous

Terrace houses years ago, quite often had cables running across them feeding neighbouring houses, sometimes a wayleave would be obtained and sometimes just the consent of the person who's house the cable passed over, if the terrace was at sometime local authority then who would give permission the tenant or council ?
Instead of asking OR to shift or relocate these cables , which would be chargeable , the survey fee I believe is subtracted from the quoted costing if you agree for the work to proceed, what you should do is check if a wayleave exists, if one doesn't you could ask for the lineplant to be moved. But a word of warning, is a few house are fed by cable on the wall( passing over your wall) and you make them shift it, they could put a telegraph pole up outside the most suitable property that could feed all the property's affected , and that could be outside your house