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A wayleave is a contractual agreement between a building owner (the Grantor) and an infrastructure operator that grants the operator the right to install, maintain, and operate equipment on or in the building. In the UK, wayleave agreements for telecoms infrastructure are governed by the Electronic Communications Code, originally enacted in the Telecommunications Act 1984 and significantly revised in 2017 as part of the Digital Economy Act. Operators who hold Code rights (granted by Ofcom) have statutory powers to request access to land and buildings. However, these powers are not automatic: they must still negotiate agreements with building owners. Wayline facilitates this negotiation process digitally.
Not all operators have Code rights. Non-Code operators (such as some EV charge point operators) rely entirely on contractual wayleave agreements without statutory backing. See Code operators vs non-Code operators for details.

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What does a wayleave cover?

A typical wayleave agreement specifies:
  • Equipment to be installed, its type, size and location within the building
  • Areas of access, such as risers, basements, rooftops and communal areas
  • Duration, typically 5 years for telecoms and longer for EV charging
  • Maintenance access, the right to return for repairs and upgrades
  • Insurance requirements, minimum public liability and employers’ liability cover
  • Reinstatement obligations, the operator’s duty to restore the building if equipment is removed
  • Processing fee, paid by the operator to the building owner
  • Termination provisions, the notice periods and conditions for ending the agreement
Each of those is a clause doing a specific job, and knowing which is which makes a first reading much faster. See what a wayleave agreement contains for the clause by clause version.

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The Grantor

The Grantor is the party who grants permission for the installation. This is typically:
  • The freeholder (building owner)
  • A managing agent acting on the freeholder’s behalf
  • A resident management company (RMC) that holds management responsibilities
On Wayline, managing agents can configure whether the freeholder or their organisation is named as Grantor on wayleave agreements. This ensures agreements are always correctly structured for the building’s legal arrangements.

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When the right party is not obvious

The list above covers most buildings. Three situations account for nearly all the rest, and they are worth recognising before an agreement is drafted rather than after. A resident management company or right-to-manage company. Where leaseholders hold the management function through an RMC or RTM company, the entity with the management responsibility and the entity holding the freehold are different, and which of them grants depends on what the leases and the company’s own constitution provide. An agreement naming the wrong one is not a formatting problem. A managing agent acting for a freeholder. The agent’s authority comes from the management agreement, and it may or may not extend to granting rights over the building to a third party for a term of years. Where it does not, the agent arranges the agreement and the freeholder is the Grantor on it. A head lease above the building. Where the building is held on a long lease, the leaseholder’s ability to grant wayleave rights is limited by the terms of that lease, which commonly requires the superior landlord’s consent for works or for granting rights to third parties. Where a head lease requires it, that consent is a condition of the agreement rather than a formality that follows it. An agreement signed without a consent the lease required is exposed on the point the lease was protecting. Wayline records whether consent is required for a building and what its status is, and the agreement cannot proceed to signature until that position is resolved. Once a request reaches signing the consent fields lock, so the record of what was relied on cannot be edited afterwards.

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How a wayleave comes to an end

Most wayleaves end the way they were designed to: the term runs out. At expiry, three things can happen. The parties renew, and a successor agreement replaces the original for a fresh term. Or the agreement lapses and the operator’s rights end with it. Or, less commonly, the parties have already agreed what follows and the agreement says so. Ending the agreement is a separate question from what happens to the equipment. A wayleave that has ended does not remove apparatus from a riser. Most agreements impose a reinstatement obligation on the operator, and whether that obligation is exercised is a decision for the building owner: some will want the equipment out, others will want it left where it is because the next operator would only reinstall it. Agreements also carry their own provisions for ending early, and those vary a great deal between one operator’s template and another’s. They are a matter for the agreement itself rather than a general rule, except where the operator holds Code rights, in which case the agreement does not decide the ending on its own. See how a wayleave agreement ends.

What happens after signature

How expiry, renewal and successor agreements work on Wayline.

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What the operator pays

A wayleave customarily carries a payment from the operator to the building owner. Its name varies, and so does what it is for: some are consideration for the rights granted, some cover the administrative cost of processing the request and granting access, and some are both under one heading. On Wayline the fee is set by the building owner rather than proposed by the operator, and the operator sees it before deciding whether to submit a request at all. Fees attach to events in the agreement’s life rather than to time.

Processing fees explained

How the fee is set, the three moments one attaches, and when it is collected.

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Wayleave vs licence vs lease

Wayleave vs lease, in detail

A deeper comparison of when to use each type of agreement.

Do you need a wayleave?

The test that decides it, and the situations that need no agreement at all.