Try reading the fine print in the Sky contract. Mine specifically says "9 Care of equipment We own the equipment at alltimes and you must not: (a) remove the equipment from the home without our prior written conset. (b) sell, lease, dispose of lend or otherwise part with posession of, or modify in any way, the equipment"
The equipment is defined as the Decoder, Smart Card and Antenna system.
I understand from this that you cannot include it in a sale and puchase agreement as chattels and in fact you can't even change the LNB yourself as that is effectively a modification.
And section (c) indicates it can be used only for the Sky service and no other programming which means you can't even legally connect a Freeview decoder to the dish and use it.
Pays to read the fine print when you sign a contract particularly when it's all in favour of Sky and leaves you with virtually no rights as the subscriber.
Yep. My house has a Sky dish, but I never signed anything. It was already on the house, now it's mine, just like all the other crap that was left behind. If Sky have an issue with that, they can talk to the person who signed the contract.
If they want to really own it, they need to remove it every time a subscription is canceled.
Imagine if someone had a similar contract regarding a plant in your garden.
If they want to really own it, they need to remove it every time a subscription is canceled.
+1 That's the problem. The contract makes no allowance for all the equipment to be retrieved on cancellation, and selling the house with it still attached opens up a can of legal worms. In practice they've virtually disowned the dish as soon as it's installed. Costs more for them to take away than it's worth.
If they want to really own it, they need to remove it every time a subscription is canceled.
+1 That's the problem. The contract makes no allowance for all the equipment to be retrieved on cancellation, and selling the house with it still attached opens up a can of legal worms. In practice they've virtually disowned the dish as soon as it's installed. Costs more for them to take away than it's worth.
And if they did remove it they would chuck it into the recycle bin rather than refurbish it..
B1GGLZ: The dish and LNB was installed by Sky at some time in the past when either the Landlord or a previous tenant decided to subscribe to Sky. May even have been there when the Landlord purchased the property. Sky will only replace the LNB at the request of the current account holder. If there is no current account holder then you will have to do it yourself. It's not the Landlord's problem.
It was always my understanding that any equipment that is in place on the premises at the time the tenancy commences must be maintained by the landlord. However things could be a bit murky because the article below states "where a landlord has installed a property with the equipment necessary to receive digital television, the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 places an obligation on a landlord to repair and maintain that equipment" and, strictly speaking, the satellite dish may have been installed by a previous tenant rather than the landlord.
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