Making Wayleave & Easement Claims: Sherwill Drake Forbes vs Thomson Broadbent
I’ve written frequent articles about wayleave and easement claims. In fact, I have many emails and messages from my readers in regards to wayleave claims. I thought it might be worth putting together a very short article outlining claims. An article looking at a few of the wayleave compensation claim companies. Those available when pursuing wayleave and easement payments. The main two that I will be discussing today are Sherwill Drake Forbes reviews and Thompson Broadbent.
This article isn’t going to be a complete review of my experiences with them. I’ve simply not needed to use their services myself in that area. Instead, the article will seek to highlight some of the features and fees of the two claims companies. It will also look to give insight into customers’ experiences with excerpts or links to quotes from my readers who have used them. By laying out some of this below, it will give readers an idea of whether they want to use a wayleave and easement claims company. It may also lead to customers sharing their Sherwill Drake Forbes reviews and Thompson Broadbent reviews in the comments.
Sherwill Drake Forbes Reviews for Wayleave and Easement Claims
You may, as a homeowner, have received letters from claims companies such as Sherwill Drake Forbes or Thomson Broadbent. The letters will come in many forms. In general, they tend to be reasonably non-intrusive enquiries. They ask whether you have previously claimed for wayleave and easement. They will seek to set out the wayleave claim process and whether you would like to use their services to claim now.
Whatever you do, make sure you look into the details of the claims companies first. There are many different claims companies. Sherwill Drake Forbes and Thompson Broadbent are two of the biggest in the UK. In general, this means they have a long-standing record with customer reviews and testimonials. It also alludes to the fact that Sherwill Drake Forbes has great experience dealing with utility providers.
The more experience and success a claims company has with wayleaves and easements, the more likely they are to be able to command a larger wayleave payment or lump sum payout for you. It’s chiefly this reason alone why I would suggest that if you’re using a claims company you use Sherwill Drake Forbes or Thomson Broadbent. Before you fire off a letter to either of these companies asking them to act on your behalf, check their current fees and rates.
Thompson Broadbent Reviews for Wayleave and Easement Payments
If you’re considering using Thompson Broadbent for your wayleave and easement compensation claims. Make sure you check out the reviews and comments of my readers who have previously used companies such as this. The reviews and queries can be found in the comment section of my article on wayleave compensation claims.
There are a number of reasons straight away that you might consider using Thomson Broadbent. First of all, Thomson Broadbent is an entirely independent chartered surveyor based service. They have no relationship or affiliateship with the network and utility providers. They also has over 23 years experience under their belts and are one of the leading consultancies having represented over 70000 homeowners in the UK.
Thompson Broadbent stated that due to their experience they are able to easily handle the negotiations needed to successfully process a compensation claim. They state that they will liaise with the network provider’s surveyors, taking into account legal and valuation precedents in order to get the best outcome for their clients. Whilst a client using Thomson Broadbent will pay them a fee they will do all the legwork for you, making the process far less confusing.
If you’re considering using Thomson Broadbent then visit their website and use their eligibility checker. If you’re then convinced that you need to use a claims company (and can’t do this easily yourself) you can sign an authority to act. Note that Thomson Broadbent suggest claims take anywhere up to 2 years to complete.
Sherwill Drake Forbes Reviews and the Wayleave and Easement Claims Process
Just like Thomson Broadbent, Sherwill Drake Forbes is a UK based surveying firm. They are of roughly the same size as Thomson Broadbent and are regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in the same way. I have seen fewer Sherwill Drake Forbes reviews online and from my readers. It’s still worth checking out the comment section in my other wayleave articles to see if more are popping up. The other articles will also answer lots of your common questions about wayleave claims.
Before using any of these companies it’s worth going direct to the provider to enquire as to what they would offer. You can then compare this to the quotes given by companies like Sherwill Drake Forbes to see if you’ll be better off with or without them. This comparison is key considering a claims company’s fees can be anything up to 20%!
Final thoughts on claiming wayleave and easements
Alongside the two companies mentioned above, it’s also worth looking to The Powerline Advisory Group. Whilst they are not strictly regulated in the same way, they may offer an “in-between option”. They generally have cheaper fees, but will not necessarily command the experience or clout of the other two. Remember, claiming wayleave and easement payments is something you can do yourself. Even though it can be less than straightforward at times, the difference between using an efficient claims company and yourself may be negligible; simply depends on the complexity of your claim case. Always consult a regulated independent financial advisor if you are making big decisions about financial issues such as this.
We enlisted Thomson Broadbent for our wayleave claim and have found that we are being urged to accept less than we were offered independently. Their communication is very poor and I’m struggling to find advice elsewhere. If the average payment is 1-4% of the property value then we should move to negotiation but Thomson Broadbent appear to just want a quick and easy resolution/ fee without any effort. So now we have a standoff as they want £780 to release us from the claim, which from my own experience took them all of 30minutes to submit.
Thanks for your update. It’s always useful to compare the experiences, offers and outcomes of these “middle men” for others to see.
We’ve been offered £150 (minus 20% and VAT) by Sherwill Drake Forbes as compensation for power lines (of which we were unaware) running under the lawn of our front garden. As I understand it signing the Waylleave agreement and accepting the money would mean that we authorise the electricity company to carry out any further work on our land, which could conceivably include installing all sorts of electric equipment. If that is the case, then no thanks.
Hi can anyone help ?
we have a 11k high voltage cable on a wayleave running 112m around our garden which is ok.
We do have permission to build our family home and have found out western power have added a copper earth cable on top of the 112m length of cable in our garden .
We were not told about the earth wire and have been working in the garden and have just been told we cant build our dream house were we have planning permission as you cant build 9m near the earthing cable.
We had the top boy out to look at the problem and the attitude of we will just go for a cpo compulsory purchase order ?
We let them in our garden thinking it was a nice thing to do and had not been advised by them with the concerns this earth wire brings to the valuation of our plot or the health and safety issues.
Also is this a breach of duty by western power.
Was an earth wire part of the wayleave conditions originally?
No the 11kw earth was not part of the wayleave agreement.
We had to stop our build and the cost of material has gone up 20% adding 76k to our original quote.
We now also have a pole and high voltage transformer over our land were we have planning permission granted with no wayleave and its earth on our land.
We went to the ombudsman and wow what a waist of time they are as they dont deal with this typy of depute.
Can western power do this.
Interesting set of articles, thanks.
We engaged Thompson Broadbent in 2016 to negotiate a wayleave buyout for us over 5 wooden poles and HT cables on our land. Time passed. Persistent gentle reminders to “get on with it” were ignored. It even took 4 years before the utility company visited – I don’t think TB have been out, or if they did, it was so long ago I’ve forgotten. In the end, a couple of months back, we terminated TB’s retainer- they just did not reply to emails or calls with anything other than a stock response. I’ve no idea what the compo might be worth to this day.
I was thinking of having a go myself, but may go instead with the alternative firm.
I’ve had about 3 letters come through from Sherwill Drake Forbes. The first one stated they will take 20% plus VAT if the wayleave is successful. I ignored it as I was skeptical. The next letters that came through stated ‘no fees’ and that they may be eligible to a payout from the power company, but I get 100% of the wayleave payment. Not sure if I should give it a go as I’m not really sure what I’m agreeing to
Most letters, we imagine, should have clear terms and conditions attached. Make sure these are looked at before agreeing to any big decisions.
Without a wayleave in place, can the utility company move existing cables to a different pole thereby shift cables from running above the side of the garden plot to directly over my property roof, if they so wanted?
This would likely depend on height, impact etc. One would imagine that the utility company would discuss this in advance and certainly write to the affected properties.
We have received such a letter before and more recently. One letter is via Sherwill Drake Forbes and offer compensation of £150- £2000 we are always apprehensive regards such letters and often think bank details would be requested at some point. The other likewise letter has come from The Powerline Advisory Group again compensation due to power line running under our property this letter offers a big juicy compensation to the tune of £1000-£10,000 big difference for the same reason. The irony regards these power lines is we have a huge electrical substation at the bottom of our garden which has recently been updated the previous station was in a poor condition and we had great difficulty explaining this issue to the power company, we eventually went through the HSE who agreed the sub station was dangerous and in poor condition some weeks later a new updated version appeared even put a nice new fence with danger warnings attached where before there was nothing and the fence was worse for wear. Does the substation come into this compensation issue?
The nature of these cases tend to be complicated without taking advice from qualified professionals. We can suggest the book listed in our article for more reading, but ultimately it is down to the individual to research themselves or use a compensation service if they feel appropriate.