Wayleave Consent

[hollytree]

My daughter has had a letter from a firm called Thomas Broadbent asking if she has a written agreement which entitles her to be paid for an electricity power line going over her house.
Does anyone know if this genuine or is this a scam?
hollytree

[andy-hughes]

They may offer to 'sort out' the wayleave for her, for a fee - much like the companies who offer to get your PPI for you.

As with the PPI claims - they are not doing anything you cannot do for yourself, for free.

If your daughter has a utility pole on her land, she may be entitled to a wayleave payment - it is not a fortune, but if it is backdated, it is worth pursuing.

Ask her to write to the local electricity supplier, marking her envelope 'Wayleaves Department' and see what they say.

[Buenchico]

If there's already a wayleave in place then your daughter (and/or the property owner, if different) is entitled to a very small annual payment. (If it's just a single power line the payment is of the order of a couple of quid. A pole in the garden might take that up to around £30).

If there's no wayleave in place then
(a) a wayleave can be sought and obtained (but, as stated above, it won't yield a lot of money) ; and
(b) compensation can be sought for the loss of value to the property, suffered by the owner, due to the presence of the cable.

It's the compensation element that Thomas Broadbent are interested in but, in order to get it, the owner (or the owner's agent, such as TB) has to show that the owner has suffered a genuine loss. It's unlikely that any loss to the value of the property could be established if the cables were already in place when the property was purchased.

This thread might be relevant here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=11414843

[atalanta]

My father used to have a power line pole in his garden. He used to get £1 a year for this.

[Dogsbody2]

It's Thompson-Broadbent, they are based in Corby, I know of them and it isn't a scam.

They are a firm of surveyors who specialise in getting clients a one-off fee from electricity companies who have their apparatus on your land, or have wires running over your land. You may already have a wayleave in place, and I agree this entitles you to chickenfeed amounts of annual payment. A wayleave is a non-permanent agreement that (in theory) can be withdrawn by you at any time, giving notice of normally 12 months. But under another bit of legislation, electricity companies can apply to the Secretary of State for an easement of necessity, which entitles them to continue with the existing arrangement. The one-off fee due to you would be resolved through the Lands Tribunal.

This is not a wayleave - it would be an easement over your property giving the electricity company a permanent right to the power line - by way of a negotiated agreement - not by the method above.

Thompson-Broadbent manage the process for you and charge a success fee - that is the only time you should be paying. The success fee should be 18% plus VAT - i.e. 20% of the sum negotiated.

No, I'm not a salesperson for them.