BT Openreach - underground cables put on my land without permission

help2save

A developer built two new houses next to my home. About 6 months ago he was refused permission by the Local Authority to dig up a newly installed pavements to put in the electricity and BT cables to connect to the telegraph pole situated outside my home. He therefore dug the trench on my land and the cables now run across my land!
I only discovered this about two weeks ago when I had employed a builder to put up a wall. There is no space now to put the wall!


I need the cables to be to be removed, but am getting nowhere - HELP!

cajef

Surely if they dug a trench across your land you would have seen it and you could have stopped them when it was being done.

ChiefGrasscutter

Without knowing the ins and outs are you totally sure that the section is actually your land.
Are there marker posts showing beyond all doubt where the boundaries are - is there a land registry plan - sadly rarely are they accurate enough for this sort of dispute.

When it comes to verges its get very complicated where the council's ownership ceases and the landowner behind starts - especially where there are wide verges.

They must have been convinced that it was public land as all utilities know that they need a wayleave agreement to go over private land and this sort of thing is dealt with on a daily basis all over the UK by them.

Who dug the tench - was it BTOR or was it the house building contractor?

All very messy it seems to me and one where it could boil down to where exactly is the boundary to the nearest inch.

force_ten

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Who dug the tench - was it BTOR or was it the house building contractor?

All very messy it seems to me and one where it could boil down to where exactly is the boundary to the nearest inch.

I would suspect it would be building contractor/housing developer that dug in the duct/cable

on a new site openreach normally provide duct and cable and the housing developer does the groundwork and then openreach would make the final connection

but as already said how did they dig a trench lay cables across your land and you didn't notice?

help2save

A new footpath was put in by the local authority (who dug up the verge at the front of our house) and left a patch at the front for us to reinstall our boundary. In the meantime these cables were installed during daytime hours. We both work full time and as it was during the Winter so we were leaving the house and arriving home after dark. The work was undertaken whilst we were out.
We also have a severely disabled son (hence the need for a strong boundary) who takes up a huge amount of our time and which leaves us very little time to be on the lookout for rogue cable installations!

POPPYOSCAR

Do you have legal cover on your house insurance?


They will advise you and possibly take up the case for you and deal with it.