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Buildings going for WiredScore certification, or holding it, tend to meet wayleaves as a scorecard question before they meet them as a request from an operator. This page sets out what the scheme’s published material shows it asking, what the documents behind those questions are, and where the current position has to be checked. One thing shapes all of it. WiredScore publishes its detailed criteria to its assessors and to the clients it certifies rather than openly. What follows rests on material WiredScore has made public, is dated to the scorecard it comes from, and gives no criterion numbers or credit values.

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What WiredScore is

WiredScore certifies the digital connectivity of buildings. Its WiredScore certification covers offices, homes and industrial buildings, and a separate SmartScore certification covers smart building technology in offices (WiredScore). In 2025 WiredScore introduced new scorecards for both certifications, with one set of categories across the two and across building types (June 2025, July 2025). Everything in the next section predates that change.

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What the 2022 office scorecard asked

WiredScore’s scorecard for occupied office buildings, in the version in use in 2022, asked three questions that bear on wayleaves. Its building reports, which are made to be published, set them out. Whether a standard wayleave was on file. The scorecard asked whether building management had a standard wayleave on file to speed up new service to tenants. WiredScore described standard wayleave agreements, also known as telecommunications policies and procedures, as the landlord’s rules for installing, maintaining and removing telecommunications equipment. It gave their purpose as a streamlined process that lets new providers supply service to the building. Whether signed agreements were in place with providers. The scorecard asked whether building management had signed wayleave agreements with the providers in the building. WiredScore’s reasoning was that a signed agreement shows an arrangement between the landlord and the provider that owns the cables and equipment, which limits later conflict between them that could threaten tenants’ connectivity. Whether a tenant connectivity guide was in place. The scorecard asked whether a guide helped tenants and providers with connectivity installations. The guide was to include at least the designated areas and routes for telecommunications equipment and cabling, contacts for building management, facilities and on-site security, and what the building requires before a third party enters the site. The third is a fact about the building: where its routes run and who opens the door. The first two are about wayleaves directly, and they are easily run together.

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What a standard agreement is

A standard wayleave, a standard access agreement and a landlord’s telecoms policy are names for the same kind of document. It sets out the terms on which the building will let any operator install, keep and remove apparatus, and it is written before a particular operator asks. A good one covers, at a minimum, the supply by the operator of drawings and specifications before installation, and the obligations of each party on nuisance and on the installation, maintenance, alteration and removal of the apparatus. The rest of it is the rest of any wayleave agreement: parties, grant, access, term, insurance and reinstatement. It is also the one wayleave document a new building can have before any provider arrives. A development cannot hold signed agreements with operators who are not there yet, but it can hand over its terms ready for the first one. Wayleaves for new developments covers what else a building can settle at that stage.

What a wayleave agreement contains

The clauses a standard agreement is made of, one by one.

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A standard agreement is not a signed agreement

The two answer different questions. A standard agreement is prepared once. It says what the building will offer, and it exists whether or not any operator has asked. Signed agreements are a record, built one provider at a time as each arrives. In an existing building much of that record predates whoever holds the building now, and good standard terms say nothing about whether the fibre already in the riser is covered by anything at all. That second question is usually the harder one. Apparatus may have gone in under an earlier owner, under a managing agent who has since moved on, or informally. The starting point is establishing whether an agreement exists, and where one cannot be found, the position is a solicitor’s question rather than a paperwork gap. A signed agreement is also only as sound as the capacity of whoever signed it, which is why who the Grantor is matters here as much as for a new request.

What if apparatus is already there?

Finding an existing agreement, and what follows if there is none.

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Checking the current scheme

The questions above come from a scorecard WiredScore has since replaced. Where wayleaves and access agreements sit in the 2025 scorecards, and what those scorecards ask about them, is a question for the building’s assessor, or for the current scorecard, which WiredScore makes available through its scorecard access page. Worth asking the assessor: whether the current scorecard still asks about a standard agreement, whether it asks about signed agreements with the providers already in the building, and what evidence it expects to see for each.

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Where Wayline fits

This section describes Wayline, the platform that publishes these guides. Nothing above depends on it, and Wayline is not affiliated with, endorsed by or accredited by WiredScore. Wayline’s standard terms. Wayline’s standard wayleave agreement sets out the rules for installing, maintaining and removing apparatus in a building. The operator works in a good and workmanlike manner and in accordance with the RAMS, and gives written notice before access. It causes no nuisance, annoyance, disturbance or inconvenience to the Grantor, residents or other occupiers beyond what is reasonably unavoidable in carrying out the permitted works during working hours, and makes good any damage the works cause. The Grantor can require the apparatus to be relocated where reasonably necessary for development, refurbishment or maintenance of the building, on notice and to a suitable alternative location. Where the building’s preferences require reinstatement, the operator removes the apparatus, equipment and cables within a set period after the agreement ends and makes good; otherwise the parties agree whether it stays. A landlord sets the building’s preferences once, including notice periods, working hours, insurance minimums and whether reinstatement is required, and each agreement on the standard terms is generated from them rather than drafted for the request. What the agreement does not cover. It does not require the operator to supply drawings and specifications. It requires a RAMS before any installation or maintenance works, and the exact route and location to be agreed and recorded in an annotated plan before installation. The record. Each agreement signed through Wayline is kept against the building, with its operator, apparatus and term. Agreements signed before a building joined Wayline can be added to the same record through Wayline’s onboarding service, which digitises existing agreements; who it is available to is set out in the managing agent quick start. Fees are set out in processing fees.