Leasehold Flat vs Gigabit Fibre Install - Where Do I Stand?

Jlawson118

I've owned my leasehold apartment for around 3.5 years now. It's ground floor with a private garden, behind the garden is a main road.

I've been looking into upgrading to to FTTP for faster speeds, as with BT I can only get up to 72gbps which is becoming quite slow and unreliable for me (I work with high quality videos that I download and upload)
City Fibre dug the main road behind me up about this time two years ago installing their fibre lines. I've been checking frequently to see if this is available in my area but still no luck. Until I've dug further and it's available in the area and in the adjacent houses on my street, but not my block of flats due to "No Landlords Permission."

But my argument is that the install would be relatively easy. I own my flat and the garden which are on my deeds, I'm more than happy for them to dig this up to install cables if it meant I could get faster and more reliable internet. The only way I would possibly struggle with permission would be that a hole would have to be drilled into my apartment.

Unfortunately communication with my property management is very poor, and anything I've ever asked for permission for in the past has proven difficult to work with, so I was debating speaking to a broadband company and explaining they could get easy access to install into my apartment, but I wasn't quite sure on my rights.

Aside from a hole in the building (which I will try and ask for permission for), with me owning the apartment, garden and land they sit on, would I have any rights to argue this install? 

QrizB

Jlawson118 said:

Aside from a hole in the building (which I will try and ask for permission for), with me owning the apartment, garden and land they sit on, would I have any rights to argue this install? 

You've said you're a leaseholder and not you say you own your apartment. Which is it?

If you're a leaseholder, you don't own the apartment or the garden or the land they sit on. You have leased them.

The lease should tell you what you can and cannot do with them.

Jlawson118

QrizB said:

Jlawson118 said:

Aside from a hole in the building (which I will try and ask for permission for), with me owning the apartment, garden and land they sit on, would I have any rights to argue this install? 

You've said you're a leaseholder and not you say you own your apartment. Which is it?

If you're a leaseholder, you don't own the apartment or the garden or the land they sit on. You have leased them.

The lease should tell you what you can and cannot do with them.

My deeds have never been very clear other than that I own the apartment within the building and the adjacent garden. I pay a leasehold fee on cleaning of the communal areas and repairs to the overall building but it's clear in the deeds that I own the apartment that's contained within

Sandtree

The documents will be clear on if you are a leaseholder or freeholder, if for some reason you cannot work it out 2 seconds on the Land Registry will tell you if your property is leasehold or not. The fact you are paying a leaseholder fee should however tell you anyway.

You can have a conversation with them and find out how they wire up flats... certainly our fibre service only wire up whole blocks and have to put kit into the common/freeholder area to support it and so one flat alone cannot get connected.

The_Fat_Controller

You do not own anything apart from a lease on your apartment and garden.

You cannot just override that "No landlords permission" just because it suits you.

LeaseExpert

You have a leasehold flat. Therefore you are wrong in saying "I own my flat and the garden". You do not. You are renting them for a very long time; 99 years or 125 years or whatever.

The land you wish to dig up is not your land. You have to get permission from the landowner (the freeholder) to dig up their land.

Your lease probably also says you cannot "alter" the structure of the building - so you cannot drill holes in walls for fibre cables to be installed. You'll need permission for that too.