Neighbours Sky Dish

[kemp596]

We are currently buying a new build due to be completed soon, the neighbour to the side has apparently had trouble getting a sky signal due to large trees in front of there house and so have put the sky dish on a pole at the bottom of the garden which is now right next to the window at the top of our staircase so we will be looking out onto the sky dish everyday, the site has covenants about where you can / cannot place sky dishes.

Do people think this is acceptable where it is and we should put up with it or should I speak to the site manager / Neighbour to ask them to move it ? as from the neighbours house they have conveniently placed it so it is behind their garage and therefore they cannot see the dish from their house.

 

[HangTime]

Look into the covenants to see if you can complain on that basis. We live on a new build estate which prohibited satellite dishes on the front of properties so we had one put on a wall at the back of our garden. Annoyingly others on our street seemed to just ignore the regulation and whacked them on the front of the houses.

 

[Richie]

Given the building works at the back of the photo, they might not even get a signal once that building is complete...

 

[kemp596]

they possibly wont get a signal once the end houses are fully built as they are further up hill. I understand the dish has to go somewhere for them to get a signal and dont want to cause problems with neighbours before we have even moved in, but its the fact they have hidden it from there view which has meant it is smack bang infront of our window and on a bright blue pole ! I will try complain using the covenant although i guess the builders wont really care less.

 

[Uther]

I would have a friendly chat with the neighbours before going full bore with covenants and complaints. They might well be reasonable people, and causing an issue now might make for quite a bit of unpleasantness in the years to come.

 

[a1ex2001]

Grow a tree in front of it problem solved!

 

[RichL]

Just get the sales office / site manager to deal with it, not your house yet.

 

[Dynix]

As you've not moved in, I would be asking the sales person you're dealing with to ask them to move it. I'm sure there are other placements on their house or around their garden which will be fine and won't bother you. From the placement of it and direction it's pointing, I don't understand why they couldn't have placed it on the other side of their house? I'd be very annoyed if this was one of my neighbours.

When we moved into our new build last year, I asked about satellite dish placements (as I noticed a couple had them on the front) and they said they're well within their right to ask / tell you to move it. The covenants for our builder/estate state that they shouldn't be visible from the front of the properties. Some ignored it but I'm sure if people complained they'd have to do something about it.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

This gets me quite annoyed really. These covenants are council things yet I bet if you asked 95% of the people living somewhere they would want a sky dish/aerial
Last house i was in we were not allowed "visible" sky dishes or aerials, there was no cable. Any decent aerial fitter will say in loft aerials are iffy.
Its pretty idiotic to put those clauses in, I mean your saying you expect people to basically not watch TV or for it to be a lottery based on which direction your house faces.

IMO these clauses should only be allowed if some other provision is in place for this, ie cable or some centralised sky receiver that allows individuals to have sky sent via fibre on the estate

 

[Maccapacca]

This gets me quite annoyed really. These covenants are council things yet I bet if you asked 95% of the people living somewhere they would want a sky dish/aerial
Last house i was in we were not allowed "visible" sky dishes or aerials, there was no cable. Any decent aerial fitter will say in loft aerials are iffy.
Its pretty idiotic to put those clauses in, I mean your saying you expect people to basically not watch TV or for it to be a lottery based on which direction your house faces.

IMO these clauses should only be allowed if some other provision is in place for this, ie cable or some centralised sky receiver that allows individuals to have sky sent via fibre on the estate

Covenant isn't a council thing it's just an agreement between parties.

We have covenants on our house but the company the covenant is with (The original builder) no longer exists so the covenant now no longer exists. I love pointing it out to our nosey neighbour who complained about me building a garden wall.

The sky dish is a bit harsh. Is the fence your responsibility?

Twist the pole?

 

[Felix]

Leave it, once the wind blows and the dish is moving back and forth they will realise that mounting a dish on a 6ft pole attached to a wooden fence isn't the best of ideas.

 

[Haze]

Leave it, once the wind blows and the dish is moving back and forth they will realise that mounting a dish on a 6ft pole attached to a wooden fence isn't the best of ideas.

^^^ this

and how much time do you spend looking out of that side window, not sure if you are being serious....

 

[Glaucus]

and how much time do you spend looking out of that side window, not sure if you are being serious....

so much this, its such a beautiful view without it, Not.
no wonder wars between neighbours is so high. Not only do people get wound up about something that in reality is not going to cause them any issue, rather than just having a chat they jump straight on the what can i do legally band wagon.
Most people will only glance out their window when opening curtains and that is it, vary few people have enough money to buy in a not built up area and massive panoramic windows to view it with.

Or are you a curtain twitching people watcher?

 

[Felix]

I do agree with the OP though, its an eyesore. Though is it a permanent install? The cables from the LNB are loose.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Covenant isn't a council thing it's just an agreement between parties.

We have covenants on our house but the company the covenant is with (The original builder) no longer exists so the covenant now no longer exists. I love pointing it out to our nosey neighbour who complained about me building a garden wall.

The sky dish is a bit harsh. Is the fence your responsibility?

Twist the pole?

Well yes but in the example above, and where we live now in fact they were inserted by the council as part of planning approval, and i believe most of the time this is the case. The builders and original land owners don't really give a stuff what you do once they finish building. Our current property for example has a covenant that covers trees and outlook, until the site is (was now) closed. Then they don't give a damn what we do, their ability to sell houses based on outlook is complete.

Our old property had a local planing officer who took these things to heart. He would merrily send notifications to people in the area who were putting sky dishes etc up, some even took them down. Eventually he seemed to give up and the sprung up all over. The estate won an award for the architects, so it was probably why he made a fuss. Thing was it was designed to hide most of the cars as well, in reality they were parked all over the pavements because the parking provision was further away than this so people just didn't bother. The architects design drawings and the reality of the outlook were just so different when you saw these lovely houses with just a few cars in designated visitor spots. When you saw reality with nose to nose cars and vans and things outside houses a few sky dishes paled into insignificance. (rant over sorry lol)

Even so, which ever party is getting these covenants inserted should IMO be forced to ensure that an adequate work around exists. Its just plain unreasonable to insert clauses to ban sky dishes and TV aerials (if they are visible from the street as was our old clause) without needing to ensure that a common requirement is catered for.

 

[Rroff]

Covenant isn't a council thing it's just an agreement between parties.

We have covenants on our house but the company the covenant is with (The original builder) no longer exists so the covenant now no longer exists. I love pointing it out to our nosey neighbour who complained about me building a garden wall.

The sky dish is a bit harsh. Is the fence your responsibility?

Twist the pole?

Not sure it is that simple? there is a covenant about the type of work that can be done on the land that our neighbour and our house is on that originates back to the 1930s and all the original parties are long gone but it is still causing our neighbour a lot of issues with work they want to do.

EDIT: Seems that because it is still on the title deeds to our property it is still valid apparently.

 

[Glanza]

Who owns the boundary fence it's attached too?

 

[Skillmister]

Original company no longer existing =/= covenant no longer exists.

Good luck getting an estate developer to enforce measly covenants regarding property appearance though.

 

[Skillmister]

Not sure it is that simple? there is a covenant about the type of work that can be done on the land that our neighbour and our house is on that originates back to the 1930s and all the original parties are long gone but it is still causing our neighbour a lot of issues with work they want to do.

EDIT: Seems that because it is still on the title deeds to our property it is still valid apparently.

At the end of the day it comes down to how likely people are to notice a breach, how likely they are to care if they do notice and if they do care, how likely they are to enforce. There is a company where I live that used to own the freehold of half the town. When selling off the freeholds (at a fair price) they impose the same covenants that were in the lease, but they actively enforce them and charge considerable amounts for retrospective consent. However, if you breach a covenant and then get away with it for a few years you can just get an insurance policy for a few hundred quid to cover it when you sell (albeit not in the case of leasehold properties with active landlords)!

This post is not intended to encourage people to breach restrictive covenants or give any indication as to the consequences of doing so

 

[SniperDude]

That looks like an 80cm dish rather than a normal sky dish if you're only getting sky uk you don't really a dish that big.

how far are the trees from the front