Refused neighbour BT engineer access

[BearBuggy]

I live in a fairly new estate with one attached neighbour. My land is slightly bigger but a small section has servitude access for both properties. I don’t have an issue with that and left that area accessible when I had my drive way mono blocked.
I however disagree that those rights extend to my actual brickwork of my house. Nothing on my title says it does - only the actual land leading to my property.
When my last neighbour had their internet cables installed they put the box onto my house . Not even near the servitude area but near my front door. New neighbours are having BT installed but for some reason can’t use previous box (already on my house) so they came yesterday to fit new one. I have no issue with them doing the cables on my drive but stopped them when I realised they were adding another box into my bricks. My neighbour wall is literally 15 cm away but they’ve had some sort of rough casting or something that makes it more difficult.
I didn’t say anything with last neighbours as it was already done. But now I have my own virgin box, gas meter, their house old box (which bt won’t remove) another box I’ve no idea what’s for and now this. It’s becoming too much and the front of my house is starting to look terrible whilst they have nothing apart from gas.

I have told them they need to put box into neighbours brick but of course they couldn’t do that as that wasn’t on the job sheet! Feel bad they’ve no internet and maybe I was unreasonable. The last neighbour box was BT as well - didn’t make that clear

Blimey - should I have been checking with the bank every time I had something done to the house as apparently I don’t own it?

I assume neighbour is swapping cable broadband for fibre broadband. We recently did the same. Cable comes up from the ground, fibre comes across from telephone pole and down the exterior wall. The new provider fit their own box and wouldn’t touch the existing one. This meant new hole being drilled through the wall and box fitted. We can’t just rip off the old box without having a plan to fill the hole which comes through the brickwork. Really annoying and we also have one at the back for now-defunct cable TV!

I’m with you OP, I wouldn’t have agreed to it especially not without some kind of conversation with my neighbour first. BT should presumably have scoped the job beforehand and brought the appropriate hardware for the wall material and all this would have been avoided.

That's ridiculous why are they sticking things on to your house? Don't let it drop OP

You can't do that, they don't belong to you, and are likely still connected to the exchange, if you put a phone across the A & B wires you will get a dialling tone, but if you try and dial you will get cut off after 5 digits.

The number could be assigned to someone else, if you short A & B by cutting or burying them you can blow an exchange fuse.

And get prosecuted for tampering with the public telephone system.

Oh.. I did with my old BT and Virgin boxes once there was a new BT line and box in. The BT engineers that came out agreed.

They will just have to use Virgin if you don’t allow BT Open Reach to fit the line. This is what happened to us when a neighbour refused on an additional property that we own, we didn’t make a fuss, why would you if there is an alternative available.

I can’t believe 4% of voters think YABU, wtf?

I suggest OP both you and your neighbour contact the CEO at BT via email if the neighbour can't get things sorted sensibly via customer services. Your neighbour may also find they get a better response if they get through to a UK call centre. If they do need to escalate, the chairman's office at BT will assign a human being with a brain to resolve things and may even get the redundant box removed from your house.

I think we need a photo of the wall with all the boxes stuck to it!

Have you actually opened a complaint with BT? Even though it was neighbours 'job' with BT, it's being done on your house.

I think someone is getting mixed up with mortgages and hire purchase.

YANBU op, it’s your property and no one has any right to put anything on it.

My broadband provider a couple years ago installed new wires across the garden. Only I didn’t realise they’d taken a shortcut under my neighbours front garden. Neighbour replaced his driveway and cut through the wires. I was furious at the broadband company for doing that, and they came and relaid the wires the next day, no quibble, no charge. It was their fault for putting it across the wrong property.

Some doesn’t understand mortgages at all for sure!

NTA that's ridiculous - mind you BT are ridiculous. I have had a battle to not want to keep paying X amount a month to keep broadband in my dead father's empty property! Even after I'd cancelled his contract, they wanted to sell me an alternative to provide BB and phone to an EMPTY house.

Don’t be so silly. The bank doesn’t own all houses that it has a mortgage on😂. I own my house - I have a small mortgage but I own it. I pay the rates and the insurance and decide if I want to decorate, extend or sell.

thats interesting that you don’t care about a utility box but not really relevant. OP cares.

I’ve got one of those green BT cabinets on the edge of my front garden. It was installed when I was away on holiday. I came home to find my driveway had been dug up and cables laid for the installation. I complained and I was told that they had sweeping planning permission to put those boxes where they thought necessary. I was also paid £11 easement for life. I now have the pleasure of chasing off Kelly and Open Reach vans attempting to park on my driveway at least once a week every time they undertake a repair to someone’s internet connection.

@IHateWinter2024 do you have a mortgage on your home? When you secured the mortgage did anyone explain the process to you?

you understanding of basic financial transactions seems a bit off.

I know ‘the bank owns it’ is a joke made by people with a house. More in my parents generation when home ownership was less common.

but people with mortgages do own their homes. They are classed as home owners. It’s not the same as renting.

OP, I think your neighbour has found Mumsnet to complain about things!

If it’s a new build estate you may find that actually there is a catch all right for utilities (that could include BT) to access and attach via your property and if so would be your entire property not just a strip at front etc, it’s pretty standard provision included in the original transfer deeds for new build properties.

But I very much doubt BT would have checked if there is or not but they will be used to having such access as it is very common

I wouldn't accept this either. If there is an issue further down the line - water getting in because of a botched install, for example, who pays for remedial works - OP or the neighbours?

There is another thread about someone lending their car which was then written off in an accident while it was on loan. Good deeds are all lovey in theory, but if there is a potential cost implication, no matter how unlikely, it's just not worth it.

I wouldn't remove the existing box until the new one was installed on the neighbours wall.

This is exactly the problem I have. BT say it's not my account so I can't give permission for the laying of a new channel or drilling of a new box. No order number apparently.

I don't want to piss off my neighbours and have a fight on my hands but they basically can't be arsed as they have their internet so that's fine. BT are useless - and whoever did it just thought this was a shortcut - and probably thought I wouldn't notice.
I'm very tempted though to just cut the wires and they'd have to bloody sort it.

That’s terrible, digging up your property. Bully boy tactics and they get away with it. 😱

Unbelievable what some companies do, totally disregarding and disrespectful of others property.

Anything attached to my house that's not mine would have a meeting with a hammer

@BearBuggy Are you sure it was BT and not Openreach for starters? If cabling is being done for Full Fibre it's usually Openreach who deal with that as it's part of the Infrastructure.

Our house was built in 2004 and all the landlines (copper, obviously) were coming into the house via underground duct cabling to the grey, brown or box on the external wall. When we got full fibre installed the Engineer simply attached the fibre cable to the terminal underground further up the street and pulled it through to the house. Another box was placed directly above the duct cabling box and connected to the fibre cable which then comes into our house and is attached to the BT/Openreach modem in our house.

So I am having difficulty trying to understand/visualise the situation you are in - because the wires won't be attached to your neighbours house if the box is on yours? Is it a semi-detached? Doesn't your neighbour's house have its own cabling duct from where the landlines went/go (This is a picture of the kind we had/have, but they come in different styles and colours).

Can you give us a diagram?