Bignose2

Little off topic but may be of some interest also when I was researching I found very little real experience of others on any of the wayleave/easement stuff. I have property with 1 pole & with 3 wires at the back of my land but in view of the house. 2 other poles on my adjacent land After all the usual stuff on TV & even letters, "you can claim for thousands of £'s for apparatus going across your land" I thought I would investigate. I applied myself, very easy actually but takes a very long time for each stage. 2+ years after first enquiry I finally had an offer for an easement, this is the permanent right that goes on the deeds so has to be taken seriously. In expensive part of surrey so actually offered £30k which covered 2 properties, this is related to a v.rough property value in my case I think close to 2 million. The section of scrub land in between offered £150, actually about the same size and almost as close but a different title so offers are purely on value and not where or what it is. Most legal expenses are also covered by the electricity company. I guess varies depending on company & region a little. I was told by their surveyor that claim amount is purely on house value & how close to house (I think less than 50m) and what equipment. Not how much impact there is or how it effects you as I had read elsewhere myself, so very little room for negotiation. So rather than them wanting you to pay to move you could ask for payment from them & depending on above roughly work out how much. Also because it was a substantial amount they did an appraisal to see if actually cheaper or better value to move the poles etc. Not sure if a delaying tactic but about 6 months later said that that was not an option, the same lines go onto other land so guess very little benefit or point I guess. So they must have been looking at other options at their expense but again I assume only up to what they would have had to pay for easement. Anyway, 3 years on from first payment ready to be made & I got cold feet. The easement contract, whilst seems very considerate to how they would approach any work they might need to do in the future is does give them a lot of rights, of course what they are paying for but gave them control over 4m (easement strip) either side of the lines (no building or tall plants, fair enough perhaps) but also what I read to mean they could do pretty much anything as long as did not need to extend the easement strip more than the 4 meters. Extremely unlikely but as far as I could tell they could put up 10 more poles, double the height and add a transformer to each without needing a wider strip. They would never need to but giving that right was a worry, more so if I ever sold on being on the deeds. So not only have I not got the £30k I have a £500 bill for the solicitor that would have otherwise been covered. I was a little annoyed, partially with myself as I only got an example of the type of contract 2 years in after the offer, If I had thought to ask on day one I do not think I would have wasted 3 years & quite a lot of emails & letters but a little surprised at the extent of power. Sorry not much help for your original problem but I think anything like this might be of interest.