Permission for sky installation for leasehold flst

Cosmicdancers

Hi, 
I was a full time carer for my mother and have lived with her in her council flat leasehold property as such for 16 years. Unfortunately  about 4 months ago she  had to go into residential care because of her dementia. I would now like Sky to install TV and Internet services to the flat via the communal dish for the entire block. I understand that I require permission from the freeholder (in this case the local council) but wonder if the fact that I am technically not the leaseholder would be any sort of impediment to permission being granted. The work being done is simply running some cables to the communal dish and involves no physical alteration to the integrity of the building. My mother no longer has capacity to make any decisions for herself and am just wondering how sympathetically my application would be regarded. Is the fact that i would be paying for this service sufficient for permission to be regarded as a formality. 

All help will be most gratefully received. 

Many thanks

Neil_Jones

Are we to presume you own the flat via right to buy>?

The communal dish only provides TV, it won't provide internet.  If that's there then that means you don't need any other permissions, you can just hook the cables up to the existing system via a box on the wall probably behind the TV (you may find this was done years ago and has just never been used).

With regards to the internet if you have a phone line already just pick a provider and they'll do the work.  It may be cheaper to go with the same provider who does the phone line.  Nothing else needed.

If you don't own the flat and you're renting it from the council you'd do as well to transfer the tenancy into your name if you intend to stay there if its obvious your mother won't be coming back to the flat.

Cosmicdancers

Thanks for the quick reply.
I live in my mother's flat because I gave up my job to look after her full time 16 years ago. The flat is in her sole name on the lease (which she bought in 2003) and will form part of my and my brothers inheritance when she eventually passes on. Obviously as I live there as a family member and as she is now in a residential home there I am assuming all the running costs such as council tax and utility bills for the property. Are you saying that even in a case where I am not the formal leaseholder I need no permission at all from the council to have sky run the necessary cables from the communal dish.? I have read contradictory advice on the internet (surprise, surprise) and am not the best at reading legal nuances. 

pallyman

Communal dishes have small monthly charges for council/housing association tenants,mines about £1.20 a month.I do ot think they would notice if you wired yours to it but you would ot be able to call them out if something went wrong,As said before have you checked to see if you have not been connected when they did the block.

Neil_Jones

It's probably  granted that the flat is already connected to the communal, otherwise it sort of defeats the whole point of a communal system.  You need to look behind the TV (which is where they usually end up) and see if there's a box with (most likely) two satellite connectors on it.  You can just connect your Sky box to that (you need an adapter for Sky Q from those but your Sky installer will be able to supply that).

Cosmicdancers

@Neil_Jones

Your right found exactly that behind the TV. All this time here and never so much as noticed them. Assume then that the either the council awarded permission to the previous leaseholder for cable TV or installed it originally in anticipation of its use. Thank you. That has helped a lot. 

Neil_Jones

Cosmicdancers said:

@Neil_Jones

Your right found exactly that behind the TV. All this time here and never so much as noticed them. Assume then that the either the council awarded permission to the previous leaseholder for cable TV or installed it originally in anticipation of its use. Thank you. That has helped a lot. 

Somebody will have installed the communal box on behalf of the council probably around the time leading up to digital switchover in 2012.  The previous leaseholder/tenant wouldn't have done it as those things are expensive.

Virgin is an entirely different thing, it'll can be a case of feeding some cable through some duct somewhere on a per-flat basis, but a lot depends on how the block has been done, some communal setups can feed everything - TV, satellite, cable, radio...  That's obviously far easier since the bulk of the work has already been done.