Neighbours phone line attached to my house, can I charge rent to Openreach

SteveCac

My neighbours phone line is attached to our house, we do not have a BT phone line, I've tentatively asked Openreach to move this but not expecting to get far with this. Legally could I charge Openreach rent for using my house for this connection, or use this as some kind of bartering to try and get Openreach to move this?

Steve.

[Deleted User]

SteveCac wrote: »

Legally could I charge Openreach rent for using my house

Good luck with that one!

onomatopoeia99

I expect that OR are rather more aware of the law on easements than you are, so I'm going to guess the answer is no.

For a reference of what you might get if you were to try and were successful, I have a pole on my garden (for electric rather than telephone) and there is a wayleave in place. The rent that the power distribution company pay me is about £5/year.

J_B

SteveCac wrote: »

My neighbours phone line is attached to our house, we do not have a BT phone line, I've tentatively asked Openreach to move this but not expecting to get far with this. Legally could I charge Openreach rent for using my house for this connection, or use this as some kind of bartering to try and get Openreach to move this?

Of course you can charge them a *wayleave*

On one of our properties, there is a dead BT line attached and OR have agreed a 'one off' payment for this (or we could have asked for an annual one)

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=openreach+wayleaves

iniltous

SteveCac wrote: »

My neighbours phone line is attached to our house, we do not have a BT phone line, I've tentatively asked Openreach to move this but not expecting to get far with this. Legally could I charge Openreach rent for using my house for this connection, or use this as some kind of bartering to try and get Openreach to move this?

Steve.

It's possible that a previous owner had already agreed to the attachment being there, and a wayleave may already exist, if one doesnt, you could ask, but the going rate for that isn't a lot, you could get a small annual payment , or a one off payment, but if the wayleave exists they could tell you to go away

VisionMan

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=13029569&postcount=9

''I work in as a survey officer/planner with Openreach so deal with issues like this on a daily basis. Up until about 10 months ago we would always move a pole without wayleave agreement at our own expense. However, the policy has now changed and we would look to reclaim costs if there was no engineering benefit to ourselves of doing the work. Don't shoot the messenger though as I just work to the policies - I don't create them.

I don't know whether you've spoke the wayleaves department on 0800 581525 but they would probably offer you a one-off payment to leave the pole where it is. It sounds though that the money isn't the issue and you just want rid of the pole. The £200 letter you speak of indicates to me that this has been dealt with by a slightly different department to where I work known as Repayments Planning. Have you tried calling the network rearrangement team on 0800 0121387?

On a legal basis you would have to submit an official notice under para 20 or 21 of the Telecommunications Act 1984. This must be a hand delivered or recorded delivery letter - a phone call or a letter not submitted under para 20 or 21 of the code is not regarded as official notice and so Openreach would have no obligation to react to it. Your solicitor will be able to help more with this. Once submitted, Openeach have 28 days to either confirm the work will go ahead or submit a counter notice which may mean the case will end up in court. I'm dealing with one at the moment which is at this stage but I can't confirm whether any of these cases have yet been tried in court or what the outcome was.''

[Deleted User]

Do you like your neighbours? If not, then this could be a good way to annoy them.

Buzby

You say 'phone line' rather than a pole. If so, then if you are complaining about the routing of the wire, you can seek to have it moved - but most likely this will be at your cost, especially if permission was originally given by the previous occupier.

LazyTyper

Is having the phone line across your property actually causing you any problems?