Hello, we bought a house in Alsace about a year ago and have been working on renovations since . Now we are at the stage where we would like to renew the garden but we have the following problem. We have a neighbour behind our house, there is no chance for him of having a telephone pole for his house because he lives in a chemin forestiere, so the prior owner allowed him to install a telephoine pole in the middle of his garden. Now we the new owners would like it to be removed and replaced on the border of our garden and not in the very middle of it ( we donĀ“t want him to stop having access to a telephone). What to do? Is Orange responsible? My Neighbour? us? Thanks so much for any advice if anyone has ever had a similiar experience. Douglas
If this is an Orange pole, there should have been mention of a wayleave on your property details and you should have been aware of that before you bought the property.
I have never heard of a private telephone pole.
Jane thanks for your comment, it really does not help much though. No wayleave etc, as I mentioned we donāt want him to stop having access to the service, he has our permission for the pole. All we need is to have the pole to be moved to the border of our property and not in the middle.
Maybe someone can help by answering the 3 relevant questions or sharing if they had a similar experience.
Have you talked to the neighbour? It will give you an idea of whether you can take a soft approach, or will need to prepare the legal ground.
In general the telephone poles are owned by the telephone company, and if you wish to move one the person who has the contract for that telephone line (or people if multiple lines) will have to ask the company to assess the situation. This will cost you. And then there is the cost of actually moving the pole. Is your neighbour the sort of person who will be happy to pay for this? Or are you prepared to pay a solid sum to get it out of the centre of your garden?
Look at the Orange or SFR community forums, and youāll probably find others who have thought to do this.
All I know for sure is from doing it as part of construction and it cost a fair bit.
Jane was trying to help,Had you not noticed the telegraph pole before you brought the house?
When we asked Orange some years back what it would cost we were told 500 euros a pole roughly. Since we would have needed three, the telephone line is still stretched along the ground!
Grow a clematis up it???
Iāve heard a quote of ā¬800 to have one removed so could be over a thousand to have it moved.
Thatās the odd bit - the pole should be property of Orange (and their responsibility) but they normally rent the small patch of ground in which it sits for a nominal sum.
Orange are going to have to be involved anyway as they would need to move the line so I think you are going to have to start by talking to them - and asking why there is no official wayleave or, if there is, why you have recieved no payments.
Not that it will be much money, of course, but you might even be due back rent 
Thank you very much Jane, will look into the forums too! I think my neighbour is grand and we can come to an agreement.
Please read my answer to Jane. Bought not brought.
uff well that could be an option too, to just get used to it 
thank you very much for your comment Sue! If you want to I can let you know how it goes with Orange and how much does it costs nowadays.
Sorry dougmont. It was an autocorrect error,but as a new member seeking help perhaps you maybe better avoiding picking fault
Yes a clematis is not a bad idea ha ! Wow 1000 Euro, hope it will not be that expensive. Thanks so much for your help Tory!
Dear Paul thanks so much, yes it is a bit messy. The neighbour has been there 40 years and I think they had a verbal agreement with the prior owner ( he is deceased now) that he could just install the pole there, literally in the middle of the garden . He rents the house as a Gite so I know he needs the phone. The wayleave approach seems to make a lot of sense now so I hope something comes out of it! Thanks again!
all good Edward.
As I said, thatās the puzzling thing - it should have been Orange (well, probably France Telecom by the sound of it) that did the āhole and poleā work. Not your neighbour.
Use it as a fab mooring for a shade sail?
If it is an āOrangeā pole then it will have a blue tag attached with itās reference numbers.
Back in 2001 I needed phone service to a building that was too far away from the road to be reached with a single span of cable. Therefore I had to pay for a private pole to be installed on my land in order to shorten the cable span to an acceptable length. Negotiations with France Telecom resulted in them being responsible for the cable strung to and from the pole, but myself becoming the owner of the pole itself, and thus responsible for its maintenance. As the owner of the pole I could easily have had it moved (at my own expense) provided that the maximum allowed cable span length was not exceeded.
Might be an idea to see how easy it would be to get some conduit and seeing if it can be buried or re-routed around. I did this in my garden when the kind fellow came to renew the old wire and seemed very happy to use a conduit rather than climbing the pole !!
Once done the pole issue itself would need approval for removalā¦ or a mistral !!