Wayleave payment offer

spiritchad

We have a new home and with it an old wayleave agreement to renegotiate. We've been made a lump sum offer to cover 14 years from western power that we think is low (0.03% of the property value) for three poles and overhead high voltage wires. We've asked for more but got nowhere and now we're not sure if that's just how it is or whether they're taking advantage because we don't really know what the wayleave offer should be. The wires supply us and a number of other houses and the 3 wooden poles are in our garden. Any help or information would be much appreciated, thank you. 

GDB2222

That sounds very low to me, but I have no experience. I think the google search term you need is wayleave agreement surveyor.

user1977

Is the percentage of the property value relevant? I thought these things were usually based on the size/number of poles etc rather than by reference to the property value.

GDB2222

user1977 said:

Is the percentage of the property value relevant? I thought these things were usually based on the size/number of poles etc rather than by reference to the property value.

Maybe, the diminution in value of the property depends on its value?

The figure the OP mentioned is pretty small. On a £200k property, that comes to £60, ie £20 a pole. I assume that that is per year.

user1977

GDB2222 said:

user1977 said:

Is the percentage of the property value relevant? I thought these things were usually based on the size/number of poles etc rather than by reference to the property value.

Maybe, the diminution in value of the property depends on its value?

Not necessarily - more expensive properties are likely to be bigger.

But from what I've seen, the payments are typically pretty small - and you don't have a great negotiating position if the poles also serve your own property's electricity supply.

spiritchad

user1977 said:

Is the percentage of the property value relevant? I thought these things were usually based on the size/number of poles etc rather than by reference to the property value.

That confused me too, they worked out the offer based partly on property value then claimed the poles and wires don't affect the value. 

spiritchad

GDB2222 said:

user1977 said:

Is the percentage of the property value relevant? I thought these things were usually based on the size/number of poles etc rather than by reference to the property value.

Maybe, the diminution in value of the property depends on its value?

The figure the OP mentioned is pretty small. On a £200k property, that comes to £60, ie £20 a pole. I assume that that is per year.

It's a one off payment offer with no other payment for 14 years, not annual sadly. 

NZPavlova

This is very low. We used a RICs surveyor to negotiate with the power company over lines going over the garden (not even any poles). Two weeks ago we received an offer of a one off payment of £4,000. The process did take quite a bit of time, but once we started it, we just forgot about it. 

GDB2222

You may find this helpful.

https://www.gosschalks.co.uk/blog/2020/05/01/wayleave-qanda-with-matthew-fletcher

spiritchad

NZPavlova said:

This is very low. We used a RICs surveyor to negotiate with the power company over lines going over the garden (not even any poles). Two weeks ago we received an offer of a one off payment of £4,000. The process did take quite a bit of time, but once we started it, we just forgot about it. 

That's really helpful to know thank you, I'll speak to a surveyor. Did you pay a commission or a set fee? Do you mind me asking what the distance from your house to the wires is? Thanks again. 

NZPavlova

A Guardian article 31st Oct 2015 "Do wires like these drive you up the pole" alerted me to the possibility (I can't post the link). We would never normally use a claims type firm for anything, but this sounded different. We went with the first firm on the list in the article and started the process in December 2017. You do have to be patient, but as you don't have to do anything, you can just forget about it. Their commission is 20% and they also pay your legal fees for sorting the wayleave. Our wires are 15-20 metres from the house. It will be another 6 months before we actually receive the money, but the length of time it takes is really dependent on the backlog your power company has for these type of claims. Ours are SSE.