Wayleave Payments - Barlow & Sons

user2015

A bad company -stay clear

JC_Derby

Interesting....
why did you feel the need to hoof this thread???
IS this going to happen every few months when apparently new posters join and decide to bump this thread?

JC_Derby

by the way thank heavens when you login the format of the forum returns, its dreadful in the new format!

OMR

I too had a visit from Barlow & Sons, in April. They told me that we were entitled to wayleave money for a telegraph pole on our land. We've lived here 35 years & never had a penny. The young man was very pleasant & carried good B&S photo ID. He explained that B&S would act as our agent, sort out the wayleave agreement on our behalf, we would get every penny to which we were entitled (he quoted how much & how he reached that figure) & they would take none of it. I was led to believe that B&S were doing this revision of unpaid poles on behalf of the power company, so their income came from that. I read the small print & couldn't see how I could come out the loser in this arrangement, so I signed. And it's fair to say, I won't be coming out the loser, but I am annoyed...
I heard nothing until this week. In the post came the wayleave agreement & a covering letter from B&S. I was to sign the agreement & return it in order to receive the agreed amount. Again, it confirmed that there was absolutely no charge to me for this arrangement.
I phoned our local power company & they confirmed that B&S were an independent land agent, who had taken it upon themselves to find poles which were not currently subject to an easement or wayleave agreement. (I guess you could call that enterprising; it's certainly not illegal.) But the power company had not asked them to do it & they were not doing it under their direction. They did, however, confirm that they were paying out new wayleave payments which were being flagged up by B&S, & they were giving B&S a small extra payment for each one. The figure B&S told me I would receive was correct.
Now I have a dilemma! Do I take the money via B&S, who are enterprising & within the law, but 'generous with the truth'. I probably wouldn't have signed if I'd known they were not under the umbrella of the power company.
Or do I tell them I don't want to complete the deal with them, & take exactly the same payment from the power company who, it has to be said, have had their pole in the middle of my flower bed for 35 years, kept their head down, not offered to pay us a bean & probably still wouldn't if B&S hadn't flagged it up.
I phoned B&S & told them I felt they'd been generous with the truth & I wanted to back out, despited having authorised them to be my agent. I was told that if I put my request in writing, I was at liberty to recind the authorisation. Still no cost to me.
Then my husband reminded me, who actually is the bad guy here? The small, enterprising company that bends the truth, or the big guy that rides roughshod over its customers for decades! Both as bad as each other really. ARGH!
Sorry if this is a long post. I just wanted to add a bit more info to the discussion.

Poundshoplover

I received a nice cheque from the National Grid yesterday thanks to Barlow & Sons. Good luck to them if they received any commission or fee for their work - I am very grateful to them for bringing this to my attention as I would never have known otherwise. I certainly would not now try to push them out of the arrangement as think that that is unfair and greedy.

stator

OMR wrote: »

I too had a visit from Barlow & Sons, in April. They told me that we were entitled to wayleave money for a telegraph pole on our land. We've lived here 35 years & never had a penny. The young man was very pleasant & carried good B&S photo ID. He explained that B&S would act as our agent, sort out the wayleave agreement on our behalf, we would get every penny to which we were entitled (he quoted how much & how he reached that figure) & they would take none of it. I was led to believe that B&S were doing this revision of unpaid poles on behalf of the power company, so their income came from that. I read the small print & couldn't see how I could come out the loser in this arrangement, so I signed. And it's fair to say, I won't be coming out the loser, but I am annoyed...
I heard nothing until this week. In the post came the wayleave agreement & a covering letter from B&S. I was to sign the agreement & return it in order to receive the agreed amount. Again, it confirmed that there was absolutely no charge to me for this arrangement.
I phoned our local power company & they confirmed that B&S were an independent land agent, who had taken it upon themselves to find poles which were not currently subject to an easement or wayleave agreement. (I guess you could call that enterprising; it's certainly not illegal.) But the power company had not asked them to do it & they were not doing it under their direction. They did, however, confirm that they were paying out new wayleave payments which were being flagged up by B&S, & they were giving B&S a small extra payment for each one. The figure B&S told me I would receive was correct.
Now I have a dilemma! Do I take the money via B&S, who are enterprising & within the law, but 'generous with the truth'. I probably wouldn't have signed if I'd known they were not under the umbrella of the power company.
Or do I tell them I don't want to complete the deal with them, & take exactly the same payment from the power company who, it has to be said, have had their pole in the middle of my flower bed for 35 years, kept their head down, not offered to pay us a bean & probably still wouldn't if B&S hadn't flagged it up.
I phoned B&S & told them I felt they'd been generous with the truth & I wanted to back out, despited having authorised them to be my agent. I was told that if I put my request in writing, I was at liberty to recind the authorisation. Still no cost to me.
Then my husband reminded me, who actually is the bad guy here? The small, enterprising company that bends the truth, or the big guy that rides roughshod over its customers for decades! Both as bad as each other really. ARGH!
Sorry if this is a long post. I just wanted to add a bit more info to the discussion.

In my opinion you have two choices.
Take the money with B&S or back out completely and take no money.
They did go to the effort of contacting you and without them you wouldn't know about the money.

Personally I don't think people should bother claiming if the poles were there when you moved in they were already priced into the house.

distance_driver

Hi . I've got an electricity pole on my land and yes you are entitled to a wayleave payment. From the electricity distributor, in my case it is western power.
Find out who's your is and contact them direct they will also back date it to when you took over the property, i got mine done for over a 10 year period.
They will also set up a payment if you want it paid yearly, five yearly or over a 15 years lumps umbrella payment. You've got to remember that if you go for the 15 year lump sum, that's it, however with the yearly it goes up either every year or two so your better off with the yearly.
At the same time you've got to remember that the pole is their property and if you take the longer payout that's it.

JC_Derby

OMR wrote: »

I too had a visit from Barlow & Sons, in April. They told me that we were entitled to wayleave money for a telegraph pole on our land. We've lived here 35 years & never had a penny. The young man was very pleasant & carried good B&S photo ID. He explained that B&S would act as our agent, sort out the wayleave agreement on our behalf, we would get every penny to which we were entitled (he quoted how much & how he reached that figure) & they would take none of it. I was led to believe that B&S were doing this revision of unpaid poles on behalf of the power company, so their income came from that. I read the small print & couldn't see how I could come out the loser in this arrangement, so I signed. And it's fair to say, I won't be coming out the loser, but I am annoyed...
I heard nothing until this week. In the post came the wayleave agreement & a covering letter from B&S. I was to sign the agreement & return it in order to receive the agreed amount. Again, it confirmed that there was absolutely no charge to me for this arrangement.
I phoned our local power company & they confirmed that B&S were an independent land agent, who had taken it upon themselves to find poles which were not currently subject to an easement or wayleave agreement. (I guess you could call that enterprising; it's certainly not illegal.) But the power company had not asked them to do it & they were not doing it under their direction. They did, however, confirm that they were paying out new wayleave payments which were being flagged up by B&S, & they were giving B&S a small extra payment for each one. The figure B&S told me I would receive was correct.
Now I have a dilemma! Do I take the money via B&S, who are enterprising & within the law, but 'generous with the truth'. I probably wouldn't have signed if I'd known they were not under the umbrella of the power company.
Or do I tell them I don't want to complete the deal with them, & take exactly the same payment from the power company who, it has to be said, have had their pole in the middle of my flower bed for 35 years, kept their head down, not offered to pay us a bean & probably still wouldn't if B&S hadn't flagged it up.
I phoned B&S & told them I felt they'd been generous with the truth & I wanted to back out, despited having authorised them to be my agent. I was told that if I put my request in writing, I was at liberty to recind the authorisation. Still no cost to me.
Then my husband reminded me, who actually is the bad guy here? The small, enterprising company that bends the truth, or the big guy that rides roughshod over its customers for decades! Both as bad as each other really. ARGH!
Sorry if this is a long post. I just wanted to add a bit more info to the discussion.

Roughshod?? By having a pole on your land? Does it by any chance feed your property?B&s are ambulance chasers IMHO
By the way, do you have any idea how many wayleave agreements your local dno has? Do you have any idea how labour intensive it is to look review these? Here's a question, have you pursued the solicitor that helped you purchase your property for not telling you that you should be due a payment? After all, they were acting on your behalf when you bought the property weren't they?
IMHO you should approach the dno direct and ask for your payment as for B&s knowing how much you would get precisely, it probably just took the nfu agreed rates

IHSIHS

I wrote to the energy company to hear what it had to say about my wayleave entitlement. It replied with forms to sign and a proposal:—
"In the event of the amount payable to me/us for the rental under Clause 1 of this Consent amounting to £20.00 per annum or less, I accept the sum equivalent to twenty times the said amount in full satisfaction of any claim I may have for such rental during the existance of the works on the land. The commuted single payment being £152.20."

I then contacted a firm of lawyers in the Gillingham area who advised:—
"The amount the energy company has offered you is more than what we could get for you. For a pole we could only get you £7.61 per annum or an 8 year payment of £45.66.
If the energy company is willing you pay you those amounts, it would be in your best interest to go direct."

I then contacted two of the above company's competitors. Their advice was:—

Northamptonshire competitor:
"We are able to negotiate anywhere from £200 to £275 " (charging 20% + VAT)

Gloucestershire competitor:
"For a pole with overhead cables, you can expect to receive £275 for a 15 year termed wayleave."
"You should allow up to six months for the whole process to be completed."
" … confirm that our fee for acting on your behalf is paid by SSE – nothing is deducted by our firm from your wayleave payment."

As my moral duty, I then wrote to the energy company again and received the following reply:
"We are prepared to increase the wayleave payment to £280.00. Once I hear back from you I can re-send the amended forms if you agree to the new amount."

Conclusion
Probably there is entitlement to a larger wayleave payment. Anyway, it is clear that it pays to shop around.

JC_Derby

Your first post and you drag up a thread from 6 months ago? OK


So how does this £280 compare to the NFU rate?