Shared Driveway Consenting Nightmare

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Mad Scientist
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#1257547 12-Mar-2015 22:58

Aredwood:
thecripplernz: I have access to fibre, but unfortunately i share a driveway to 3 other homes. Bigpipe offered me a free trial, then extended it to all my neighbours when they found out i shared the driveway. One neighbour hates me, boom. done and dusted.

cant even get vdsl either...

Maybe you will need to do some crowdfunding for the legal costs to launch a test case. A lawyer fried said that if an essential service crosses neighbours land without an easement over that land. There is case law saying that there is a "deemed easement" due to the service being essential. And the fact it has always been there.

So it would just need to clarify if a copper to fibre replacement is also classed as essential.

Go to the media?

froob

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#1257548 12-Mar-2015 23:01

richms: Good luck with that. The sooner someone gets a test case to sort this absurdity out (In the absense of the govt getting the spine to do anything about it) the better.

Don't think a test case or law change is really needed. As others have said above, a common driveway is likely to have an easement in place for telecommunications or failing that, there will be some other shared property mechanism for consent and dispute resolution in the lease documents for a cross-lease or Unit Titles Act etc.

The OP stated earlier that they had spoken to a lawyer and only had those rights in place for copper services. They are probably an unfortunate exception, and I expect generic "telecommunications" rights are more common these days.

Presumably asking for consent is just a Chorus policy based on risk of liability rather than any particular legal restriction preventing them from working without individual consents. I would guess as a large organisation, they have put in place slightly more robust and cautious process than your average drainlayer / gasfitter / other service installer. Someone here might be able to confirm their process and reasoning in more detail.

Perhaps if an owner could show Chorus the source of their right to install the lines without needing further consent and confirmed that they had notified the neighbours of the upcoming works etc, then things could be moved forward that way. If the particular shared property process did indeed require consent, then the owners could go through the prescribed process in their shared property agreement, including dispute resolution if consent is unreasonably withheld by a militant neighbour.

Not sure if Chorus have any flexibility to consider individual circumstances, or whether they just apply a blanket "consent required in all cases".

Guide: Installing Network Cabling in New Zealand Homes

richms

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#1257556 12-Mar-2015 23:15

What happens if, when for example I have to replace my water main which I will probably have to do, there was a piece of the microducting accidentally dropped along side it, and when chorus came to do the fiber install in the street they found this pre-exising duct ready to go?

Richard rich.ms

thecripplernz

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#1257558 12-Mar-2015 23:30

richms: Ok, so what we need is for the govt to amend the telecommunications act of 1987 to fix this mess. Like they should have done when shovelling all that taxpayer money to chorus to put the stuff in the street.

absolutely!!!

robjg63

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#1257863 13-Mar-2015 13:28

WagtheDog:
MikeAqua: Check the title for an easement. Usually where properties share a driveway there is an easement.

I doubt the workers need approval from all owners to do work for the driveway if they aren't disturbing or blocking it.

Hi Mike - That is what I checked into with our Lawyer - the easement is on 'essential services' & since the law hasn't kept pace with technology, copper is part of the easement, but of course fibre is not mentioned. My lawyer is certain if this was tested in court that we would win - but again, why SHOULD I have to test this in court.

I have heard this mentioned before by a couple of installers I talked to - The government has stuffed it up.

Our building at work had to get sign-off form every occupant before the UFB cabling could be pulled up the ducting. If it was phone wires then not permission is required. It took months to get sign-off.

The government did not include internet in the 'essential services' and could have done - and in fact have been told they should have done.

I suppose pushing a referendum through parialment for a new flag is a lot more important though.....

They say on one hand that everyone needs UFB but did nothing to allow it to be easily installed in these circumstances.
The time and money this has wasted for consumers and the overheads it has created for the installers is massive.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

DarthKermit

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#1258069 13-Mar-2015 18:36

^^^

Yes, it's a stoopid state of affairs. What will happen in the future if Chorus decide that they won't maintain two parallel networks in one location any longer?

Meaning that they start to decommission the copper network but some people through no fault of their own aren't able to get UFB because their ROW or MDU neighbours won't give consent?

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

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Bung

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#1258076 13-Mar-2015 19:18

At that point wouldn't the neighbours also need a UFB connection?

richms

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#1258082 13-Mar-2015 19:36

Bung: At that point wouldn't the neighbours also need a UFB connection?

Not if they don't have/want fixed internet

Richard rich.ms

raytaylor

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#1258191 14-Mar-2015 00:06

Aredwood:

So it would just need to clarify if a copper to fibre replacement is also classed as essential.

Go out to the street, disconnect your line from the trunk cable going to the exchange. Close the loop at the street end going to your house.
Then connect a 5 amp power supply up to the house end and short it using the copper loops going out to the street.

Oh No your copper line is damaged under the driveway. Might as well replace it with fibre...

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richms

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#1258193 14-Mar-2015 00:11

You read my mind.

Richard rich.ms

raytaylor

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#1258194 14-Mar-2015 00:12

Bung: At that point wouldn't the neighbours also need a UFB connection?

Yes but in many cases, they wouldnt need to give consent for their back neighbour to get a connection. So the back neighbour could be left without anything.

I am in a similar situation at home.

Absent landlord, never liked me when he did live in the house, probably wont give consent for ufb to run up the driveway. He owns the driveway - we don't have a title on it other than an easement.

If the copper is switched off, he could easily get himself a UFB connection without giving consent for me to get one.

Ray Taylor

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richms

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#1258196 14-Mar-2015 00:14

The sad thing is people with money to actually do anything about this to establish something, will all live in seperate housing, or high end apartments with a decent bodycorp.

Richard rich.ms

robjg63

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#1259417 14-Mar-2015 17:27

Have just popped an email to Campbell live with reference to this story - maybe a few others should as well.
Also - how about emailing Fair Go and Seven sharp perhaps (I dont tend to watch them).

At this stage its not an issue to me - and hopefully my neighbors will be ok when the time comes - but its extra red tape that Chorus shouldnt have even had to deal with if the government had done it right from the start.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

WagtheDog

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#1260202 16-Mar-2015 12:55

This discussion has fired me up to have ANOTHER crack again at my neighbours. I now have the ROW consent from one, but the other is AWOL. The one who capitulated did so because she has had fibre connected by her tenants and thought that not giving me consent was being 'unfair'. One down, one to go....

Bung

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#1260209 16-Mar-2015 13:06

I thought that before the last election Chorus were trying to get an ammendment so that rather than needing approvals an interested party had to object. That would stop things stalling just because someone was ignoring the issue. Hopefully the objection would have to have a reasonable basis. What's happened since?

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