Wayleave Agreement Issues

neeko79

Hi, I have a BT telegraph pole on my land and I have checked with the relevant channels and there is no Wayleave Agreement in place. I have no landline or wired internet in place (I use mobile 4g data sim for internet and just a mobile for phone) so I have no service whatsoever from BT. The pole in question is situated right in the middle of a strip of land between my house and the road. Although it doesn’t serve me it does have a wire going to other properties up the street. I want to do some reconfiguration work to the front of my house but the pole is in the way and will prevent me from carrying out this work. I requested help from Openreach and they have said: 

“If you are preparing to develop or make improvements to your land then our network is afforded protections under “Paragraph 16, Schedule 2, Transitional Provisions of the Digital Economy Act 2017”. This gives BT existing rights under Paragraph 20 of the 1984 Code which allows for any expenses incurred by the Operator (BT) during the alteration of any apparatus to be reimbursed by the land owner / developer, unless the Court otherwise thinks fit. For the record, we can think of no reason why a court, on reasonable application by Openreach to secure its right, would exercise its discretion not to award alteration expenses, if the issue were to be litigated.” They then go on to basically say that in order to do some work on my own land then I will have to pay (thousands of £) to remove a poll that has no legal agreement in place to be there in the first place. It feels that I’m being held to ransom if I want to make some alterations to my own property. They have offered me a Wayleave payment but I don’t want this, I just want them to get rid of the pole. Does anyone know if I would stand any chance of getting this thing removed without having to pay? Do I have any rights to force them to remove this pole? Many thanks.

ToxicWomble

Was it there when you bought the property?

Kattekwaad

You might want to ensure that the wayleave wasn't bought out by Openreach sometime in the past

Aylesbury_Duck

ToxicWomble said:

Was it there when you bought the property?

Good question, to which if the answer is "yes", then it should have come up in the conveyancing process when OP was moving house.

davidmcn

neeko79 said:

Hi, I have a BT telegraph pole on my land...The pole in question is situated right in the middle of a strip of land between my house and the road.

Are you sure this strip of land is your land?

davidmcn

Aylesbury_Duck said:

ToxicWomble said:

Was it there when you bought the property?

Good question, to which if the answer is "yes", then it should have come up in the conveyancing process when OP was moving house.

The conveyancing process doesn't normally include flagging up telegraph poles which don't have any relevant wayleave agreement.

Ectophile

You need to have a read of the relevant sections of http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/schedule/2/enacted which then refers out to Schedule 2 of http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/12/schedule/2/2017-08-29 for any existing apparatus.

You would have to go to court and persuade the judge that it necessary to move the pole.  Openreach would argue that it's an un-necessary expense, so they should be compensated for doing the work (see Schedule 2, paragraph 20, section (8) of the Telecommunications Act 1984).

How do you fancy your chances in court?

ThumbRemote

How much are they offering for the wayleave payment? Could that be backdated, and if so would the amount offered cover the cost of moving it?