Wayleaves explained: the paperwork behind every slow office internet install

Ask anyone who has moved office in London what surprised them most and there is a decent chance the answer involves internet that arrived two months after the desks did. The culprit, more often than not, is a piece of paperwork most people have never heard of until it is holding their business hostage: the wayleave.

What a wayleave actually is

A wayleave is a legal agreement between a telecoms carrier and a property owner that gives the carrier permission to install and maintain its equipment on the property. Fibre in the risers, cabling through the basement, a termination box on your floor. None of it can legally go in without the landlord's written consent, and the wayleave is the document that grants it.

It sounds like it should be a form. In practice it is a negotiated legal agreement, which means solicitors, and solicitors on both sides, because the carrier has its standard terms and the landlord's side will want changes. Neither party is in any particular hurry, and crucially, neither of them is you.

Why it takes so long

The tenant orders a leased line and the clock everyone talks about, the 60 to 90 working days a typical install takes, quietly assumes the wayleave goes smoothly. It often doesn't, for reasons that have nothing to do with technology:

The landlord has no incentive to rush. The internet isn't for them, the legal fees might be, and their solicitor has other files on the desk.

Managing agents sit in the middle. Every query does a round trip through an extra party.

Freeholders and superior landlords may need to consent too. In older London buildings, working out who actually has the authority to sign can be an adventure in itself.

Listed buildings add another layer. Routing fibre through a Grade II building brings conservation considerations into what was supposed to be an internet order.

Two to three months is normal. Six months is not rare. And through all of it, your team is running a business on 4G dongles and coffee shop wifi.

Who pays, and other awkward questions

The carrier usually covers its own legal costs and often the landlord's reasonable fees too, but not always, and disputes about fees are one of the classic ways a wayleave stalls. The tenant, who is the only party actually suffering, generally has no seat at the table. Your leverage amounts to polite chasing.

One more wrinkle: wayleaves are typically tied to the carrier, not to you. If a previous tenant had fibre from one provider and you want a different one, that existing wayleave probably does not help you. A new carrier means a new agreement and the clock starts from zero.

How tenants avoid the whole thing

The simplest answer is to pick a building where the wayleave work is already done. In a Netcalibre calibrated building, the fibre is installed under our existing agreement with the landlord, multiple carriers are already interconnected in the basement, and there is no per-tenant wayleave at all. You tell us the bandwidth and the move-in date, and the connection is live when you arrive. The difference is not a faster process. It is the absence of the process.

If your building isn't calibrated, the practical advice is to start the internet order the moment you exchange on the lease, not when you move in. Ask the agent early whether a wayleave exists for your chosen carrier. And build the delay into your plans rather than hoping it won't happen to you.

Why landlords should care

It is tempting, as a building owner, to see wayleaves as the tenant's problem. Increasingly they are a lettings problem. Tenants now ask about connectivity before they view the space, agents get asked "how fast can they be online", and a building where the answer is "about three months, once the solicitors are done" is at a genuine disadvantage against one where the answer is "day one".

There is also the cumulative mess: every carrier that ever signed a wayleave has left its own cabling in your risers, and nobody is responsible for the tangle. A single carrier-neutral network in the building, installed under one agreement, means tenants choose their provider without anyone drilling new holes, and you never sign another wayleave again.

That, in one paragraph, is what calibrating a building means. If you own or manage commercial property and the wayleave pile on your desk has become a recurring character in your working life, we should talk. The survey is free.

Call 020 3026 2626 or get in touch below.

Never sign another wayleave

Own or manage commercial property? Tell us about the building. The survey is free.