Land Registry do not have old deeds digitised(?) on line. You have to dig deep to find them. I own the land right up to the road, but service organisations have way leave for pipes and cables and right of access for servicing. BGAS engineer tried to tell my neighbour that the land was theirs but we soon put him right. No poles to worry about
At my previous house BT did same .. and a year later also run cable diagonally across my garden to feed next door ... which was an eyesore - but they didn't need my permission.
In article , bert writes
Gas is coming in on overheads now :-?
FWIW, at my dad's place he owned the verge but let the council grab a bit when they decided the area needed some pavements, it seemed like a fair swap.
In message , bert writes
Umm.. A way leave is a legal agreement between the owner of the land and the utility provider. How this works for a housing development is beyond my knowledge. Perhaps the original site owner makes the agreement which may then be noted in the individual Land Registry records.
In message , Tim Lamb writes
It was covered by covenants on the original deeds along with other restrictions such as not keeping chickens. These were classified as "old deeds" on the LR site which simply meant they were held in image format and not searchable. There was no implication as to any loss of legal status.
Have you checked the LR to see if the covenants are listed there? If not, I don't see them being legally enforcable. The LR is the only authoritative record for any registered land or property.
Waving old deeds about just says that there was, at one time, a covenant in place. It doesn't say anything about what might have happened to that covenant later.
YMMV, but I got an entire BT pole moved for free about 10 years ago.
It had been placed about 3ft from in line with my property boundary, in line with a hedge that seperated a garden path from a front garden. When I removed my garden wall and hedge to make a driveway, the pole was left in an inconvenient place. I asked them for a price, and they just came and did it: I came back from holiday, it was moved :-).
I bet that doesn't happen these days ;>)
Jim K
I've just told you where they are.
As I've lived here since the houses were built you would think I might know if anything had been changed.
Typically such restrictions are put in place by the developers to ensure that as they begin to sell the properties and people move in, they do not create an atmosphere that puts off potential purchasers for the remaining properties. Once they have sold the lot, they are generally no longer interested and will not enforce any restrictions - and generally they are the only ones that can.
SteveW
That depends, if the covenants are part of a 'building scheme' they can.
I believe you can apply to a magistrates court to have these covenants enforced.
Wow. That looks *nasty*
Michael
My understanding is that (these days) you've got a right to get any such stays, which are on your land, moved at the utility company's expense.
I don't much about wayleaves and *paying* for them, but any stay on your land should be written up in the deeds stating that the company has a right to enter your land to maintain it. I've never heard of a company having to pay for the right to have a pole on someone's land.
There's a pole stay over our back wall which I'm thinking of moving if I ever remove and replace the garage, as it interferes with the rather tight turning circle. A friend of mine in the Peak District had a pole stay removed from their land some years ago.
Michael
We bought this house in May last year. The (excellent, very on-the-ball) solicitor had no problem whatsoever with the wayleaves in place for the electricity poles and transformer on the land, with nothing about them mentioned in the LR entry.
Western Power have, as I already mentioned, handed one pole to BT, installed a new pole, and changed two-plus-transformer to one-plus-new transformer. One cable (to next door) has been moved into a trench. We've signed a new wayleave.
BT, otoh, have no wayleave, but now have a pole on our land. WP have kicked 'em, and they're coming "within the next couple of weeks" to have an initial survey and discussion. When I asked 'em, whilst the trench was still open, they wanted to charge us £200 just for that first visit.
My parents used to get a tiny payment (£10/yr? I forget) for the pole in their garden in Cheddar. It was over 30 years ago, though.
Hmm. The stay (in our garden) for the pole (on next door's land) is for an overhead power supply[*] to next door and as such is not part of any service to our house - so under what conditions exactly does a wayleave entitle a fee, does anyone know?
Michael
[*] The supply is underground through our land and only emerges at the pole, to traverse the length of next door's garden.
If there's some infrastructure on your land that doesn't _only_ supply you, they need a wayleave for it.
If it's only for your supply, then they don't.
They send me 7/yr for a pole in my garden. You are entitled to it. All you have to do is ask and it will be sent for ever more. The local network provider will have a department just for this.
This all came in when the utilities were privatised I think. Before then, you got nothing
It depends on the wayleave agreement. In many cases the wayleave was secured by a one off payment, and no rent is payable. The details should be registered, or if the land is not yet registered, the agreement should be with the deeds.
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