> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.wayline.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How a Wayleave Agreement Ends > Expiry, notice and surrender in an ordinary wayleave, why a Code agreement does not end when its contractual term does, and what happens to the apparatus either way. There are two questions here and they get answered as though they were one. The first is what the agreement says about ending. That is a drafting question, and the clauses that answer it are covered in [what a wayleave agreement contains](/concepts/agreement-contents). The second is what actually happens when the end arrives. For an agreement with a non-Code operator those two answers are usually the same. **For an agreement with a Code operator they are not, and that gap is what this page is about.** ## The ordinary position, in short A wayleave with a non-Code operator is a contract, and it ends the way its own provisions say it ends: the term expires, or a break is exercised, or a party gives notice under the notice clause, or both parties agree to bring it to an end early. That is the whole of it, and restating each clause here would just be the previous page again. What matters for what follows is the shape: **the agreement decides, and the date in it is the date.** ## Where Code agreements depart A Code agreement does not work that way, and the difference surprises people who have read their agreement carefully. **The expiry date in a Code agreement is not the date the operator's rights end.** The Electronic Communications Code contains its own provisions for what happens when the contractual term of a Code agreement runs out, and the effect is that the agreement continues rather than falls away. It comes to an end when it is brought to an end under the Code, not when the calendar reaches the date in clause 3. **The reason is structural rather than accidental.** The Code exists to keep electronic communications networks in place. An arrangement where apparatus serving a building lost its legal basis because a date passed, with nothing decided by anybody, would be a network that goes off on a schedule. So the Code takes the question of ending out of the calendar and puts it into a process. **What that means in practice for a building owner** is that the useful date is not the expiry date. Reaching the end of the stated term does not, on its own, put you in a position to require anything. It changes which conversation is available, and it starts a different clock. **What ending a Code agreement actually requires is where this page stops.** The grounds available, what has to be served and on whom, the periods that apply, and what happens if the operator does not agree are all set by the Code rather than by your agreement. They are also the most heavily litigated corner of this subject, and the answer in a particular case turns on facts this page does not know. If you are trying to end a Code agreement, that is a solicitor's question from the start rather than after a first attempt. ## Establishing which one you have Since the two positions differ this much, the first useful question about an ending is which kind of agreement it is, and that is a question about the operator rather than about the document. An agreement can reference the Code without the operator holding Code rights, and an operator can hold Code rights without every one of their agreements being a Code agreement. Neither the heading nor the presence of the word settles it. What Code status means, how it is granted, and how to check an operator's. ## The apparatus is a separate question Whether the agreement has ended and whether the equipment comes out are different questions with different answers, and conflating them causes more trouble than either alone. **An agreement ending does not empty a riser.** Most agreements impose a reinstatement obligation on the operator, but an obligation is not an event: somebody has to require it, and somebody has to verify it was done. **Removal is not always what anybody wants.** Where the building will be reconnected by another operator, taking cable out and putting cable back in costs both parties money to arrive where they started. Leaving serviceable apparatus in place is frequently the sensible outcome, and it is a decision worth recording as a decision rather than reaching by drift. **Redundant apparatus nobody has decided about is the common failure.** It is the case neither party's template handles well, and it accumulates: a building with three generations of abandoned cable in its risers usually got there one undecided ending at a time. Scope, acknowledgement, works, verification and the completion certificate. ## Renewal, which is the other ending Most agreements that reach their term are renewed rather than ended, and a renewal is not a continuation of the old agreement. It is a new one. That distinction is worth holding onto, because a renewal is the moment when terms that were set years earlier can be reconsidered. Apparatus has usually changed since the original, the building may have, and the fee that was agreed for a five-year term was agreed in a different market. A renewal granting a fresh term gives the operator what a new connection gives them, which is why it is treated as its own event rather than as paperwork. Expiry warnings, the renewal decision and successor agreements. ## What is worth knowing before an end approaches Three things, and all of them are easier to establish years early than weeks late. **Which agreements you hold, and where they are.** Wayleaves are rarely registered, so they live in files rather than on the title, and a building that has changed hands may have lost them. An agreement nobody can find has not necessarily ended. **The operator's Code status**, because it determines which of the two positions above applies and therefore what the expiry date means. **The apparatus position**, meaning what is actually installed as against what the original agreement described. The two diverge over a long term, and reconciling them at the end is much harder than recording it as it changes. This page describes how these agreements generally work. **What your agreement provides, and what follows from it, are questions about your documents and your facts.** Where an ending matters commercially, and particularly where a Code operator is involved, that is a question for a solicitor rather than for a documentation page. The clauses this page assumes you have read, including the ending provisions. The instrument, its legal basis and who grants it.