Telecom operators have been trying to reduce rents paid to mast site owners since December 2017 when the Electronic Communications Code came into force. However, the decision in CTIL v L&Q [2020] UKUT 0282 (LC) this week will help clarify the terms of agreements.
The tribunal considered market evidence for the first time, and decided deals negotiated before the commencement of the Code could not be taken as a reliable guide to values. The tribunal made clear that operators should share information on other transactions and experts should request information they reasonably require from their counterparts to enable them to provide their evidence.
Kary Withers, partner at Clarke Willmott, who acted for landowners L&Q, said: ‘This is the first time that market evidence of new code deals has been considered by a tribunal and that is why a figure of £5,000 pa as opposed to £1,000 at a previous tribunal case involving a property in Islington, has been arrived at.’
The tribunal indicated there was ‘no reason to expect that the market value of a site providers agreement to confer code rights over a roof top site on any different residential building will be much more or less…we would not be surprised if values in other parts of the country were not in the same narrow bracket’.
Annual payments rather than a one-off fee should be made for a ten-year agreement, where the freeholder insures and maintains the building and allows for access, while the operator bears the cost of shifting its equipment where the landowner needs to carry out essential repairs, the tribunal held.
