Is 'no satellite dish clause' unfair/illegal?

sorin said:
you don't own the air also, so, following your logic, kindly please stop using it
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I'm sorry, I don't see the point you're making. In an apartment you do not own the outside walls or the roof. Therefore it's not unreasonable that you cannot put a satellite dish on the outside walls or the roof. Why should the right to have a satellite dish, if that right does in fact exist, supercede other peoples rights? My sister for example doesn't have her own property...she still lives at home. Should she be able to erect her own satellite dish because her rights are being trodden on?
 
Sorin, the law is relatively straightforward on this. It is an apartment in a building consisting of several dwellings. The building as a whole belongs to a management company who have an agreed set of terms that you sign up to when you buy a leasehold apartment in the block. It is assumed that you are capable of understanding the legally binding documentation that you sign and that by signing them you agree to all terms within them. The best time to disagree is before you sign! The managing company engages a management agent to act on their behalf, including enforcing the agreed contract.

By purchasing an apartment in the building you also become a member of the managing company with the rights to influence said company in the normal manner. If you wish the terms of the agreement to be altered the proper forum in which to do so is the AGM. It is quite amazing how few people turn up to AGMs considering how important these meetings are. if agreement can be arrived there on your "right" to have a satellite dish then perhaps the contract (if it is explicitly in there) or the rules of the development if they are separate can be updated (not necessarily cheaply or easily done).

The externals of the block (walls, foundations, common areas, hallways etc) are essentially someone else's property. Any change that you make to these is effectively trespass and vandalism.

If you are renting an apartment you have even less right to interfere with other people's property, and are bound by the terms of the contract governing the leasehold with regards to your enjoyment of the property.

It doesn't really matter if you spent money on having a satellite dish installed and it doesn't matter if you want to watch television. The point is you broke the agreement you made. That you are out of pocket and angry about it is irrelevant. If I were to decide to fence off part of the public park for my own exclusive enjoyment the council who own/manage the property would be perfectly entitled to dismantle my fence and charge me for the fact they had to! This is no different.
 
Well said. I wish people would stop posting links to European law to back up what they precieve to be their human right to have a dish and actually read what it says. Nowhere does it say that an apartment dweller has a right to stick a dish on the common areas of an apartment block at the expense of other residents rights not to have them if the lease that you signed forbids the use of dishes.
 
Did anyone here the case of the women sent to prison for the night for putting up a satellite dish on her council house?

It is on RTE 1 radio now.
 

The most sense spoken on here since this thread was started!
 

Hi SheSells. I've been reading through many of your posts on this thread with great interest (not the full 9 pages so far though ).

I'm just wondering, if you haven't already done so, would you mind posting the exact procedure that your management agent employs to remove such dishes forcibly? Just curious as to how this happens in practice. Things I'd be interested in knowing is the equipment used, the type of company that does it, whether the occupant is present at the time etc.

Thanks in advance
 

Why would the occupant have to be present? The management agent is removing an item from an area owned by the management company which should not have been put there.
 

To be honest I don't know and as long as it keeps happening I don't really care. I know they did take legal advice before any dishes were removed so I presume it's all above board.

Sorry for the vague answer but my concern is the removal of dishes in breach of lease agreements asap.
 
What a LAWER did said after checks of the legislation? Well, ... IT’S ILLEGAL TO BAN AND REMOVE THE DISH..., and if I want I can take to court the Management Company and put them on really troubles.
Well, I know that many of you just don’t care about law and legislation so I’m just tell you that my DISH IS BACK ON THE ROOF and I’m enjoying watching TV channels from everywhere.
Finally, any of you from the Management Company are just forgetting that you don’t own buildings and your job is to make the quality of living better not worse.
 
Sorin, good luck to you in carrying your point, hope it works out for you and your neighbours.

I do not know how you deduce that because we are law-abiding citizens who take our civic responsibility seriously, including abiding by the terms that we agree to when we sign a contract, we are somehow by your strange logic careless about "law and legislation".

Finally, there is no such singular entity as "the Management Company", apartment owners across the country are members of management companies that manage their own particular development. Every owner is involved, not just those that are directors. And contrary to your assertion, they do own the building. Their remit is to manage the development for the benefit of ALL OWNERS not just cave into the ludicrous and recalcitrant. This includes responsibilities regarding the maintenance of the exterior and the management of services. It does not include pandering to the specific wants of any one individual in the development. If you want to do as you please to the exterior, buy a freehold house, otherwise learn to live with your neighbours rather than against them.
 
Sorin - are you the owner? If so you are most likely in breach of the legal documents you signed at purchase by erecting the dish. You would have to take a court case to prove that these documents breach the law. If you're not the owner then you have zero rights in this.

By the way the management companies DO own the buildings of apartments, "owners" only have leases!
 
love hearing about owners taking the managment company to court so you pay the legal fees twice to have a day in court. Pay your own legal team then the company's legal fees via a levy or next years service charge all because they did not read the lease before buying a property
 

good point xb_deai!
 
Mick31 said:
. . . I agree that satellite dishes do take away from style of development, but to restrict them and not provide for an alternative means of access to satellite is completely unfair. . .
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I am one of the owner directors on the board of our management company. Just back from a meeting tonight where this very issue was discussed. We want to have all sat dishes removed on health and safety grounds as they protrude into outdoor landings. We decided to install sat dish transmitting free-to-air signal to all apartments, with the option of adding pay signals. I wonder if we will need a separate dish to pick up Polish TV?
 
Hi Mick31,

I'm a foreign national (Italian) who has been living in Ireland for quite a while. 3 years ago I purchased an apartment in Gleann Ribh in Lusk and I had a similar issue to yours concerning the installation of a satellite dish.

First of all I'd like to say that I'm in total agreement with all your posts. The fact that a contract has been signed which has a clause that prohibits the installation of a satellite dish is totally worthless since it violates basic human rights and it's in breach of the free movement of goods and services within the EU.

Secondly I have other interesting articles that you may want to read:


http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/cm/601/601591/601591en.pdf

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/cm/617/617113/617113en.pdf


In my case what happened is that my satellite dish was taken down 3 times by the management company of the apartments and in one case the satellite dish disappeared as well (so I reported the management company to the police).

I spoke to my solicitor about that and I showed her the same links that you posted in your first post but she said that since there was a clause in the contract she coudn't do anything about it. I got the impression that she only said that because she didn't want to get involved in a case like that and not because there was nothing that she could do.

I then spoke to a team of legal people in the company I work for who provides free legal advice to employees and again I showed them the same URLs of your first post stressing the fact that as a foreigh national living abroad I have a right to watch the programs from my own country. In addition I said that I was in the process of learning a foreign language (spanish) and I needed spanish TV to practice.
However I was told that those URLs refer only to press conferences and not to actual EU laws.

All in all no one wanted to take the responsability of pursuing this issue which is possibly very long and expensive (we are looking at EU high-court here with all the intermediate steps to get there - possibly 2-3 years before you get there and lots of money spent).

I'm sure though that if someone is willing to get to the bottom of this issue through the various stages of courts will succeed and either your management company let you have the satellite dish on your balcony or else the court would ask them to install a common satellite dish on the roof.

Now I have sold the apartment (for other reasons) and purchased a new one elsewhere which I haven't fully moved in yet. As soon as I move in I will install a satellite dish again.


If I can be of any help let me know. Although I'm not a lawyer I may be able to help from my own experience.

Thanks
 
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