To think a Solicitor might be able to help with this or am I wasting my time?

[girlfriend44]

I have been housing a BT openreach signal box on my house wall for many years. (wayleave agreements for anyone who dosent know)
BT are supposed to have an agreement with you if you have their property on your land as our people who supply electricity pylons etc.

It turns out through investigation that there was never an agreement in place for a box to be on my property all these years.

Openreach have offered me about £200 for all those years ive had the box plus agreeing to keep it on the house going forward?

You are not allowed to remove the box yourself otherwise you can be charged with malicious damage in order to get the £200 you have to agree to keep the box up there forever.
Everything is on their side and the payment is crazy, not to mention if i hadnt investigated it would never have come to light.

They agree the payments are low but say thats the most they will offer. I can fill in a form and get the payment and be done with ti.
OR
Would it be worth me contacting a solicitor to see if they can negotiate a higher payment or am I wasting my time.

Anyone had similar or know?

Better to charge per visit, so let them know you are revoking any rights of access they have, so they will be a trespasser if they access your property. Ideally with a sign. Then you can also offer a 100 pounds per visit charge. That might stop them accessing it when they like.

Why is it an issue? I have an open reach junction box on my driveway. Causes me no issues at all. Sometimes I might find one of their engineers tinkering around with it but they always put protective barriers around my car so it doesn't get damaged. Why is a junction box requiring a solicitor?!

sherwillforbes.com/client-services/electricity-line-compensation/high-and-low-compensation

These people have been writing to my address. I don't have any electrical equipment on my property but it is no win no fee.

Did you even read your own link? It’s for overhead lines.

Have you got an agreement with them for it to be there?
They can't just put apparatus where they like and come onto people's property without permission.

Yes it was there. No agreement was in place and it was never mentioned.

You aren’t going to get a solicitor to do this on a no win no fee basis. That’s personal injury. This is contractual dispute.

So when you viewed the property prior to purchase did you ask "what's that" ?

When you considered making an offer to buy did you ask your Solicitor about the Wayleave and its implications?

I'm bewildered why this issue has suddenly come up after so many years.

And be careful with regard to No Win No Fee Solicitors - at the end of the day someone is going to be billed for their services.

It could be you. For several thousand.

They’re not going to give you more money because of a solicitor 🤣
Was that supposed to be sarcastic? A hint of a law suit very often makes people and organisations ramp up their offers.

OP honestly theres no point in getting a solicitor in to negotiate a higher price, it will cost you more in fees than you would get.

We had one of those companies that wrote to us saying they'd get us thousands for having an electric pylon in the garden..... We got £400. Which is absolutely better than nothing!! but there was no chance we would have got any more.

We also have a BT pole in our garden, they're always nice and ask permission to come in, and we get the trees trimmed for free so winners all round really.

Lol never heard of the term wayleave back then. How many people are up on these things.

Can't comment on your particular situation OP, but like @Goldendoodlemum, I have a 14 year rolling wayleave agreement with Western Power for a pole with

Some of us are 'up on these things' and can tell you that there's no way in hell you're getting any more than the £200 they've offered.

So you either take that or get them to remove the box.

Those are your options.

Sorry, posted too soon!

...a step down transformer in my garden, paying me £2000 for each 14 year period.
The irony is that I live very rurally and the transformer only supplies my property and that of my only immediate neighbour!

Maybe, but what about the fact they put it up and trespassed without permission at some point?
It's the fact they didn't follow the right channels in the first place that needs to be addressed.
Interesting Post. How many folks had heard of Wayleave I hadn't.

Honestly, take the £200 and let them have access to the box.

Or tell them to remove it if you’re dead set against anyone on your property ever.

We have a way leave for a cable under our garden - it’s about £2.50 or something every few years. And the water board need access to a manhole regularly to inspect. It makes no difference to your life, honestly. Let them do what they need.

@Testina I did read my link and I am aware the issue is not identical to the OPs. However, as the issue relates to wayleave agreements with utilities I felt it was similar enough that signposting towards the company may be useful.

But you haven't answered my questions 🙄 I didn't ask you if you knew about Wayleaves did I.

I thought though you may have said "WTF is that and what's it doing attached to this property that I am looking to buy"? No?

‘no win no fee’ 🤣 good luck with that.

If you don’t want it on your property, tell them to remove it. If it doesn’t bother you, take the money. Otherwise stop being so grabby

I think this has been done to death now.

The DP (as I presume it to be?) exists, you would be willing for it to remain if you were offered more money for the wayleave agreement but you don't want to accept the (standard) sum that has already been offered. Answer, you ask for them to make arrangements to have it removed.

Simple and everyone is happy. 😁

She won't be happy because then she won't get the £200

@dottypotter “Maybe, but what about the fact they put it up and trespassed without permission at some point?
It's the fact they didn't follow the right channels in the first place that needs to be addressed.”

You really think BT just waltzed onto the property after OP bought it, and placed it?
At some point, it was placed there.
The owner at that point was in agreement.
That owner or a chain of owners sold to OP.
OP bought knowing there was no payment - or the seller would have informed her.

I expect the original agreement was either done years ago and somewhere along the way the agreement has been lost (e.g. a paper record of a one off payment) or a mistake made - not setting up the wayleave.

But even if thar original “mistake” was actually BT deliberately conning the original homeowner and lying that there was no choice and no payment, that wasn’t done to the OP.

Now if OP was somehow suing the original owner for not declaring that BT had access, and it was the original owner posting saying, “can I get a solicitor to make BT pay, cos they lied to me in the first place” I might say go for it.

But this is entirely the OP on a money grab for something she bought fully aware of. So £200 is a nice wee bit of money for nothing, and enough.

It’s in the public interest to allow items like this on private land - our infrastructure for electricity, telecommunications etc fuels our economy. If a court was involved in deciding the correct recompense, they would take that public interest into account. Additional cost on wayleaves would increase prices for all.

OP is chancing here arm, but she’s taking the piss.

dottypotter.
Fully agree.
Would be interesting if the OP would post the requested photo so we could see it.
Also does it serve her own property?

We had a small BT manhole cover in our front lawn, one day they knocked and asked if they could replace it with a bigger one to accommodate fibre broadband. No problem, told them to carry on.

The guy (who was surprised we were so accommodating - apparently he’d had some difficult ones that day) casually asked if we had a wayleave in place and suggested we look into it.

I filled out the form and they wrote to us offering £400 one off payment, the letter was v clear that there was no negotiation and take it or leave it. It did say that the signed agreement should be kept with the deeds as it was ongoing regardless of us selling the house. Nothing had been in place until that point - the house is 40 years old and doesn’t have telegraph poles in the street so I guess the manhole was put in when it was built.

Utility companies have an obligation to supply people and if they had to go and renegotiate with everyone they’d never be able to get any work done. We and our neighbours use broadband so I figure it’s only fair that we facilitate that.

We are farmers and have 4 or 5 poles and cables on the land and get about £40 a year. £200 is pretty generous. I’d take it if I were you.