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Rip Off Britain S18E09

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00:00Today, more than three years after cracks appeared in the walls of their home, we meet
00:05the couple stuck in a battle with their insurer to fix damage caused by subsidence.
00:10This is by far the biggest crack and over time it's grown.
00:14You can even fit a 50p piece in that crack.
00:18Plus the mysterious subscriptions that could be hitting your bank balance.
00:23We meet one man who didn't notice the monthly payment that ended up costing him hundreds
00:27and we'll have all you need to know to flush out any sneaky subs that might be lurking
00:32in your account.
00:33Helping you to protect your money.
00:35This is Ripoff Britain.
00:43Hello and once again welcome to Ripoff Britain HQ in Salford.
00:48Now this is the base for the team that lives just to investigate your stories.
00:53Well, as we just heard today, those stories include subsidence and subscriptions, plus
00:58another S, slow broadband.
01:01In the race for a super fast connection, we meet the people stuck on slow because whoever
01:06owns their building wouldn't sign the right paperwork.
01:10I had to ask my landlord, then I had to go to open reach and then I had to go
01:15back to
01:16my landlord who went back to the freeholder and this went back and forth over and over
01:20and over.
01:21Now it's a problem that could affect anyone who rents their home or doesn't own the free
01:26home.
01:26So later on, we'll be finding out what you can do in that situation.
01:30But first to subsidence, it can be an absolute nightmare for homeowners, not just when it
01:36comes to fixing the damage it can cause, but also when tackling the source of the problem
01:40itself in order to make sure that your home is safe for the future.
01:44For the couple in our first film today, the cause of the cracks in their home seemed clear
01:49from the start, but the insurance claim that followed has been beset with problems and
01:55rejections, which has left them feeling that the people making decisions about their claim
02:00don't really understand the problem.
02:02Which doesn't bode very well, because as climate change leads to hotter, drier summers, which
02:08cause the ground beneath our homes to shrink, subsidence could become a problem more and more
02:13of us have to face.
02:16The dream for Helen Jenner and husband Josh was always to move back up north one day.
02:22We're really keen to move away from London.
02:25I've been here for 25 years and we're just ready to lead city life.
02:31They want to sell their home of five years in Romford and head to greener pastures.
02:36We want a bit more outdoors.
02:38We want to look out and see green space.
02:40We have two dogs.
02:42We want to go out on long dog walks, you know, country pubs, like that's the dream.
02:47But those plans have stalled.
02:50Because beneath the surface of their house is a problem.
02:56This is where we first noticed the subsidence.
02:58And this is by far the biggest crack.
03:01And over time it's grown.
03:03You can even fit a 50p piece in that crack.
03:08Subsidence is when the ground beneath the building sinks, making the foundations unstable
03:13and often causing cracks and structural damage to the property.
03:17Helen and Josh discovered it in August 2022.
03:21We were really shocked.
03:23This was a house that we had just bought that was going to be our dream house.
03:27And we had lots of plans and ideas and suddenly everything was put on hold.
03:31So we were pretty devastated.
03:33So Helen and Josh called their home insurer, AXA, and asked for help.
03:38AXA instructed loss adjusters Crawford and company to investigate.
03:42Their report focused attention on the 23-year-old extension at the back of the house and concluded
03:49that the subsidence was caused by what it called root-induced clay shrinkage.
03:55The investigators dug a trial pit to measure the extension's foundations and revealed,
04:00much to Helen and Josh's shock, that they were just 12cm deep.
04:05We suspected that the issue was caused by a huge sycamore tree that was on our boundary.
04:11When the report came back, it said that the extension itself was a bad build
04:16and that they wouldn't pay the claim at that point.
04:20But this came as news to Helen and Josh, who'd only bought the house a year earlier.
04:25We kind of couldn't believe it because when we bought the house,
04:28you know, we had building surveys, we had all of the building regs,
04:33we had done our due diligence, we had all the documentation
04:36to show that this build was absolutely perfectly fine and adequate.
04:39So we couldn't really understand where this term bad build had come from.
04:45Convinced that there must have been a mistake, the couple hired an independent surveyor
04:50to do their own assessments at a cost of £450 and it disputed Crawford's findings.
04:57So Crawford sent in subsidence specialists for yet more tests.
05:02They dug another two trial pits and they came back with the same conclusion,
05:06that the foundations weren't adequate.
05:08By now it had been a year since the cracks had first appeared and they were no closer to a
05:13resolution.
05:16We were pretty devastated at that point, we were pretty angry as well,
05:20that we were paying this money for our insurance premium, but they weren't doing anything.
05:26And we knew that we would have to take this further ourselves.
05:30Coup, a second independent survey and a second conclusion that Crawford had got it wrong.
05:37Helen sent the report to AXA, but after a six month wait, the insurer rejected his findings.
05:44I was really disappointed and just really frustrated because it was a lot of work at this point and a
05:50lot of expense.
05:50So after the two reports were rejected, we were really determined we weren't going to take this line down.
05:58We were so convinced that we were right, that this building was fine and ultimately we just wanted to get
06:04our house repaired.
06:06To prove Crawford was wrong about the depth of the foundations, the couple got an independent firm
06:11to dig their own trial pit and found that the foundations were not 12 centimetres, but two metres deep.
06:21We were really relieved when we could finally prove we were right all along and the foundation
06:27depths were absolutely perfectly adequate. We felt really vindicated. We thought this was going to be
06:34the beginning of the end effectively and we were going to be able to move and sell the house.
06:39By now it was October 2024. Helen and Josh had spent £1,740 and 25 months,
06:47proving something that Crawford should have got right from the outset. When presented with the proof,
06:53Axa finally agreed to pay out. I was in my office at work when I got a phone call from
06:59the insurance
07:00company and it was just total jubilation. I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing.
07:05We had just been fighting this for two and a half years and suddenly they believed us. Things could,
07:11at long last, get moving. Crawford and company apologised, admitting that the site investigations
07:18weren't up to scratch and reimbursed the money Helen and Josh had spent on independent surveys.
07:25Attention turned to stopping the subsidence by removing the tree and after 12 months of monitoring
07:31for any further movement, there was good news. The house had effectively stopped moving,
07:37so when the tree was removed, the subsidence was resolved. We were thrilled we could move to repairs.
07:45But a further six months down the line, the property has still not been fully repaired.
07:51Helen says that it's been a fight to get the work signed off.
07:56Right now, we're having to painstakingly go crack by crack, issue by issue, damage by damage,
08:02and say this isn't subsidence or proof that this is. And it's just a long, long period.
08:11Helen believes that the subsidence has damaged the floor of the extension.
08:15You see that the door sticks a little bit. But the loss adjuster Crawford doesn't agree.
08:23We've lost all trust and faith in their assessments on the house because they've been proved wrong so
08:30many times. So we just can't trust their word. The delays have come at a significant cost since
08:36Helen and Josh's fixed rate mortgage term has expired. And until the work is completed,
08:41they can't get a new deal and they're stuck on a higher rate. So we've ended up actually having to
08:48pay around £500 a month more on our mortgage. So again, it feels like we're being trapped in this
08:55house and we're kind of being held ransom to it until we solve the subsidence issue.
09:01We are just totally and utterly destroyed by this whole situation. And we just want to move.
09:10With that dream move to the country in mind and with the subsidence now thankfully under control,
09:16Helen wants to know how easy it would be to sell the house.
09:21So local estate agent Tony Varghese is taking a look around.
09:26What is the general reaction when people come into a house and they hear this house has had subsidence?
09:34So with anything to do with subsidence, we have to put it on the property particulars. We have to
09:38state the fact that the property has had a history of subsidence. If you were to go to market without
09:44the rectifying the issues, obviously buyers are going to be put off when they see it.
09:47And that could mean only being able to sell to cash buyers and taking up to 25% less than
09:54the house
09:54would be worth with everything fixed. So it's paramount that the insurance claim and the repairs
10:00are completed quickly and properly. I think if you've dealt with everything correctly,
10:05I don't think it's going to stop you selling it. And I don't think it's going to affect the overall
10:09value massively. What it will do is put off a few people, maybe drop the value anywhere from around the
10:16five percent mark from what it should be. Even with a drop in the likely sale price,
10:21Helen is relieved. Hearing him talk about that houses are sold after subsidence claims have
10:27completed actually gives me a lot of hope and it makes me think we really can get this resolved.
10:33We're just ready to move and ready to start new lives. And we'll certainly be keeping in touch with
10:38Helen and Josh as they get closer to starting afresh. But if they hadn't been so dotted in their
10:44determination to prove Crawford's assessments wrong, things you know might have been very different.
10:51So joining me now in HQ to discuss what we can all take from their experiences are building industry
10:58expert Roger Bisbee and solicitor Gary Rycroft. Gary, when mistakes are made like that by official people,
11:07what are your rights overall? Well, the mistakes were made by the loss adjusters. Now,
11:13loss adjusters are appointed and paid for by the insurance company. I'm not saying they're biased,
11:18but certainly if you're on the receiving end of their reports, you can absolutely question their
11:24conclusions. You can ask questions. And if things don't stack up, you can commission your own report.
11:30Now that does have a cost, but it might be a really good investment if the outcome of commissioning
11:36your own report is an insurance claim that is successful rather than one that's rejected.
11:42Gary says getting your own survey can also be used as evidence if you need to refer a complaint
11:47about your insurance company to the financial ombudsman service. When we spoke to the loss adjuster
11:54Crawford and company about Helen's case, it told us it was very sorry for the distress and frustration
11:59that she and Josh have experienced. It says subsidence claims can be particularly challenging,
12:05often requiring extensive investigation, monitoring and engagement with multiple parties
12:10to assess the cause and deliver an effective solution. Crawford said that it is now working
12:16to resolve the outstanding issued. Meanwhile, AXA admitted that the service the couple received fell
12:22short, adding that it is reviewing what went wrong and working closely with its suppliers to ensure that
12:28it doesn't happen again. AXA confirmed all aspects of the claim will be covered in full. The remaining work
12:35will be completed as quickly as possible and that Helen and Josh will be reimbursed for the cost of the
12:41independent surveys and provided with compensation. So they'll be very glad to hear that.
12:47And I'm very pleased to say that since filming, AXA has appointed a new claim handler to manage the claim
12:54and
12:55health care. And Helen and Josh will soon be moving into alternative accommodation while the repairs take
12:59place. But aside from Helen and Josh's experience, subsidence is something more and more of us may
13:05soon experience, thanks to the impact of climate change on the ground that our homes are built on.
13:11Roger, we're going to turn to the problem of the subsidence itself. It is apparently getting more
13:17common. But why is that? The weather that we're getting now, they tell us we just had the hottest
13:22summer on record, then we have the wettest winter and it does play havoc with ground conditions. It will
13:27heave when it's wet and it will shrink when it's dry and that will have an effect on the house
13:34and the
13:35foundation. So that's why we're getting more building movement than we used to get. Roger says the ground
13:41in which your property is built on can be crucial in determining the risk of subsidence. And it turns
13:47out that over four million homes in Britain are built on something that's especially susceptible,
13:52clay. What happens is it swells when it gets wet and then it shrinks when it gets dry and it's
14:00causing
14:00these problems with the cracks. And then something like sand is all right most of the time. It's the
14:06water that will wash the sand away and then you'll get the subsidence. So if you're buying a house that's
14:11built on sand, get the drains checked out, get a camera survey on the drains. Then you get things like
14:16chalk. Chalk's pretty good except that sometimes you get underground streams and that will open up chasms
14:21suddenly and sometimes catastrophically. So Roger, here's the big question. How can we all tell actually
14:28if we want to investigate what our home is actually built on? Well, there's a great thing called the British
14:35Geological Survey and it's free. So we put a postcode in here and it zooms straight into exactly where we
14:41are now.
14:42And if we click on that, it tells us that the bedrock geology here is a chest of formation sandstone,
14:51247 million years old. Is that all? Well, it could be 250. They're a bit vague on that. So we're
14:58on
14:58sandstone, which is pretty solid stuff. But over the top of it are some clay, some sand and some gravel,
15:04which would have been washed down by the river. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. All that information. This is
15:09open to anybody countrywide. Absolutely. Everyone will look at it and I spend hours on it because
15:13I'm such a sad person. But it saved me a lot of money in the past because when I've been
15:17looking
15:17at a building project and I've been able to do this bit of research, first of all, it's worth a
15:24lot,
15:24you know. Now Gary, you deal with a lot of surveys and so on. So would the risk of subsidence
15:30turn up on
15:31the survey? I've read lots of surveys over the years. Now, the bottom line is that the risk of
15:36subsidence might not be revealed by a survey. But I would say it's always really important to
15:44have a survey because number one, it gives you a baseline for your starting position with regard
15:50to the risk. Whatever it turns out to be, you've got a baseline. And secondly, you've got the surveyor
15:56effectively on the hook because they are giving you a confirmation of what the state and condition of
16:02what that property is at that point in time. Having a survey will put you in a better position
16:08if you do eventually want to make an insurance claim because in effect, that's your first report.
16:15I want to go to the selling aspect of it. If you know that you have a risk of subsidence,
16:20presumably there must be very strong advice that you have to give people like that about what they
16:24declare up front. Absolutely, 100%. If you are selling a property, you have to be open and
16:31transparent about any historic issues that they've been with regard to the structure. And if you aren't,
16:37it's a potential misrepresentation and you can be sued by the buyer. What good advice. Well, thank you
16:43both very much. Really a lot to absorb and appreciate you coming in. Thank you. And we've put all of
16:48that
16:48advice and a link to the website that Roger mentioned on our own website. That's bbc.co.uk
16:54slash ripoffbritain. But now it's time to put more experts to work on your problems in the Advice Clinic.
17:04The Advice Clinic is on the road, bringing the best consumer advice. This is something we hear about
17:11quite a lot. Think about going through the small claims court to get your money back. To you.
17:19Here's our home today for the Advice Clinic, BBC Radio Berkshire in Reading, which is super exciting
17:25for me because this is where I began my career as a reporter over 30 years ago. The team are
17:31inside.
17:32They're ready. We've got lots of things to sort out. Let's get started.
17:37Jeff Haynes is with us today. He's come to us for help with a mysterious subscription for Amazon's
17:42audio book service, Audible, that's been leaving his bank account without his knowledge for years.
17:49Solicitor Lisa Webb from Consumer Group, which is on hand to help.
17:53Jeff, come in here. Hopefully we might be able to get some answers to some of your questions.
17:58Take a seat there. This is Lisa Webb.
18:00Jeff's issues began in October 2025, when he was checking his bank statement and spotted an £8.99
18:08payment to Audible, which he hadn't approved. And when he checked his old statements, the same
18:13payment kept occurring. Had you ever, as far as you remember, had an account with Audible?
18:19No, not at all. Never. I called up Audible to find out what was going on. They said there was
18:26an
18:26account with Audible, that my name had been used. And so I gave them my email address and they said,
18:32well, no, that's not the email address we've got here. So I said, but that's my bank account details
18:38and the money is going out of my bank account. The email address used to open the Audible account
18:45was not one he'd ever used. And Jeff says Audible told him it couldn't close the account because
18:51he wasn't the account holder. And in the meantime, he calculated he'd spent hundreds of pounds on what
18:58appeared to be someone else's Audible membership. So what did you want from them? A refund or what
19:03did you want? Yeah, I wanted a refund for all the payments they'd taken from my account. And they
19:09were having none of it? No, they wouldn't do it at all. And I went and told my bank about
19:15it and they
19:15refunded me for three years. They refunded you? Of payment. And did they stop those payments?
19:21Yeah, they stopped the payments, but they said I had to reimpose the block on Audible every 13 months.
19:28That 13 month time period is all to do with the way Audible memberships and a lot of other
19:34subscriptions are paid. So there are different types of payments that go out each month. Sometimes
19:39people have direct debits, sometimes people have standing orders, and sometimes there's this thing
19:43called a continuous payment authority. Direct debits and standing orders are sort of one
19:47type of beast that the bank themselves can cancel. They can say that's not going to happen anymore.
19:52A continuous payment authority comes from the requesting bank, which is why it's harder for your
19:58home bank to do anything about it. The standard position is that they'll put a block on that CPA,
20:04that continuous payment authority for 13 months, which is what they've told you.
20:08Geoff, I mean, you've tried to detangle this, haven't you? How much stress has it put you under?
20:12It's making me really worried about, you know, what else is going on in my account that I haven't
20:19detected yet or I haven't seen. And then there's the whole stress of I've got to think when I'm
20:25going to reimpose this block on every 13 months. I can understand why you're getting so annoyed with
20:32this. When you have spoken to Audible, what information have they been able to give you about
20:37the account? Oh, he's come prepared. They just send me a standard letter, which is that.
20:43Let's have a look. So, they're saying I was able to find the charge on another customer's account
20:50for an Audible subscription. If you still do not recognise this charge, this is a fraudulent charge.
20:57Please dispute the charge with your bank. So, looking at what Audible have said to you here,
21:00they're admitting that they are taking your money for someone else's account, which means they need
21:06to stop taking it. Yeah. I really think they've got it wrong here. So, what does he need to do
21:11right now then? So, I think there are a couple of things. We need to talk to Audible, explain to
21:16them
21:16that the problem you're having is that they're taking your money. They have the control. They are able
21:22to not take that money. And then on top of that, I think you can speak to the Financial Ombudsman
21:27Service about what's happening with your own bank. They can consider whether or not the bank's being
21:32reasonable by saying they'll only apply a block for 13 months. And actually, they might be able
21:36to step in and tell your bank to extend that block for longer. One other step would be for Jeff
21:42to
21:42cancel his card or change accounts altogether, which would stop the payments and any need to reinstate
21:49the block. But Jeff didn't need to take any of those steps after we got in touch with Audible.
21:58It told us that the account was originally set up in 2018, but had laid unused for years.
22:06Audible also said it takes allegations of unauthorized charges very seriously and understands Jeff's
22:12concerns. However, its strict privacy policies mean it cannot disclose details about one customer's
22:19account to another, even in cases where fraud is alleged. Audible encouraged people to get in
22:25touch with any similar concerns and confirmed to us that the account linked to Jeff's bank details
22:31has been closed. Jeff has probably lost at least £400 and Lisa believes his experience shows just how
22:40important it is that we all check our bank accounts for recurring payments every month.
22:46There'll be other people watching who will think, you know, it's definitely worth going
22:50through your bank accounts, isn't it, to watch those recurring payments? Definitely. I'm so glad you
22:55checked because by checking what you've managed to do is stop this in its tracks.
23:01So, to help you spring clean your bank account for any recurring subscriptions,
23:05Lisa has this advice. Step one, pour over your statements going back more than a year. That'll
23:12mean you can spot charges that are made annually rather than monthly. Step two, highlight anything
23:19that you don't recognize and if you really can't remember, ask your bank what it was for. Step three,
23:27identify the type of payment, whether it's a direct debit, standing order or a continuous payment
23:32authority like Jeff's and tell your bank to cancel it. Step four, tell the company responsible to
23:40cancel the next payment and check the subscription won't auto renew without your say so. Step five,
23:47remember, like Jeff's bank, yours might only be able to block a recurring card payment for 13 months.
23:54So keep checking. It's advice Jeff won't easily forget.
24:08Now, if you've got a problem and you think that our advice clinic team can help, and I know that
24:13they
24:13can. Then do let us know. The email address is ripoffbrittain at bbc.co.uk and our WhatsApp number is
24:250306781321. And of course, we remind you of those details and the other ways to get in touch
24:29later on in the program. Well, Gary is back and we're also joined by consumer rights expert,
24:34Martin James, because in a moment, we're going to be quizzing them on some of the questions you've sent in.
24:39But first, for an update on a story we first covered in 2025, and I think it was one that
24:45you advised
24:46on here in HQ too, Gary. Do you remember the names Naz and Anita? Yeah, they were desperate for help
24:53after buying their first family home and discovering the dreaded Japanese knotweed in the garden.
25:00Here's a quick reminder.
25:04There was these big shoots as big as that that were growing here.
25:09I read about it and it seemed very scary to me because of what consequence it can have on the
25:16foundation. Japanese knotweed is an invasive plant that can wreak total havoc. Its strong roots have been
25:24known to grow through concrete and some people claim undermine building foundations.
25:30One of the pages here specifically asks for the presence of Japanese knotweed on the property,
25:39or even in the surroundings, and it's clearly marked no by the sellers.
25:44Had the knotweed been declared by the sellers or in the survey, it could have affected Naz and Anita's
25:50ability to get a mortgage on the house and might even have stopped buying it altogether.
25:55But as the new owners, they are now stuck with it, not to mention the challenge of getting rid of
26:01it.
26:03To help them work out their options, we've got an expert opinion.
26:11Matt Day is the director of Environet. It's one of a number of companies that can survey your property
26:18and detect and remove invasive plant species. And it doesn't take long for him to establish what
26:25Naz and Anita have to deal with.
26:28If we're looking at how long has it been on the property or within the area for,
26:32we're looking at at least 10 years, but most likely 20 plus. If we were to excavate,
26:38prices range from around £5,000 to £15,000.
26:41That's shocking, Matt. That's a price because we didn't expect this.
26:46No. No, not at all.
26:47This is additional cost, not of our making.
26:49Yeah, the cost you never accounted for.
26:52Well, that is very, very scary, I have to say, and I would hate to find that in my garden
26:57with you.
26:58But I am thrilled to say that there is good news to report because after the advice that they were
27:04given on the programme, Naz and Anita raised a legal claim against the sellers of the house
27:09because the knotweed had not been declared on the sales paperwork. Now, the claim was settled
27:14before it went to court. And as a result, hey, Naz and Anita now have a good chunk of money.
27:20And the money, of course, going to be spent on removing the knotweed for good.
27:24Gary, you must be happy with that legally.
27:26I'm really delighted, actually, because they were a lovely couple and they had a sense
27:30that they'd been treated badly. But I think what we did here is to give them that oomph
27:35to make them go forward and to press their claim. And I'm really glad that there's been a satisfactory outcome.
27:41Well, time to put some more of your questions to Gary and Martin. And Martin,
27:44one for you from Nigel Williams in Flintshire, who says he paid nearly £130 for a suit online,
27:51but it never arrived. He says his bank account has shown that amount pending since he ordered the
27:57suit. And that means he can't spend the money again. The retailer says they now can't locate the
28:02transaction and isn't being any help. So what can Nigel do?
28:06Well, this is one of those frustrating computer says no moments, isn't it? Because whenever we
28:11transfer money, no matter what form that transfer takes, your bank or the medium that you use to
28:17send that money will always know where it's gone. Now, what I think has happened here is there may have
28:22been
28:22a problem, which means the details it's gone through to the other party's bank accounts, it hasn't been recognised.
28:28Money then sits in a holding account waiting to be told where to go. Now, it just needs someone to
28:34do that.
28:35The obvious choice is your bank and they should be getting onto this and then it can be sent on
28:40to the suit company.
28:41Now, sometimes banks can be very difficult about doing this. So, threaten to go to the free financial
28:49ombudsman service, that will get their attention. That should put something under their backsides,
28:54get them moving. Yep, quite well. Well, that's one way of putting it, Julia. Gary, this one is for you
28:59this
28:59time. Catherine Lowe emailed on behalf of her dad, who used a courier company to send a WhatsApp that was
29:04worth £100 and he was sending it off for repair. Catherine says the tracking shows that it was delivered,
29:10but the jeweller says he never received it. Eight weeks on, her elderly parents are extremely upset,
29:15as the courier company is taking no responsibility. So, is there any comeback for her?
29:20In legal terms, Catherine's dad has a contract with the courier company and their job is to
29:27transport the goods to the destination, but we need some evidence in this case. So, we need a statement
29:33from the jeweller to say, I have not received the watch. She then needs to go to the courier company
29:38and say,
29:39look, the jeweller has made this statement. The watch hasn't been received. Please prove to me that you
29:44have delivered the watch and where did you deliver it to? Now, they should have a photograph. They
29:50should have perhaps something called a GPS stamp, which actually identifies where goods have been
29:55delivered. Now, if she gets that evidence and it shows that the watch isn't at the jeweller's,
30:02then she then has her evidence to go to the courier company and say, you have not fulfilled your
30:08contract. And she can then raise a formal complaint. So, she needs to piece together that evidence
30:14methodically and then go for it. Now, next to broadband. In what feels like no time, it's gone from a
30:21useful
30:22service to an absolutely essential one, which is why so much effort is being plied into ensuring
30:27as many homes as possible can access a super fast, full fiber connection.
30:33But if you rent your home or you don't own the freehold, then like the woman we're about to meet,
30:39you could discover that even though the cables you need for that lightning fast connection run
30:44right up to the pavement outside your house, getting permission to connect across the final few meters
30:50into your living room could be a hurdle that seems impossible to clear.
30:58This is where I live. Come on in. This is my office. This is where I spend most of my
31:05time.
31:07Freelance arts producer Sarah Brinn rents this house in Lewisham in South London
31:12and often works from her own specially adapted home office.
31:15I have a muscular skeletal disorder called Ehlers-Danlos, which makes certain things
31:21more difficult or more painful. So, I've got a few things here that help me work ergonomically.
31:27And this setup helps me kind of look straight ahead and keep my body in the healthiest position possible.
31:33But thanks to unreliable and patchy broadband at home, Sarah has had to abandon this setup and...
31:41Instead, I have to work at coffee shops like this.
31:46Sarah is a regular here.
31:48Hi, I'm going to get for you today.
31:50And it's become a rather expensive...
31:52I spent a small fortune buying coffees just so I could legitimize using the wi-fi at these coffee shops.
31:58Not to mention painful makeshift home office.
32:02I have something called cervical cranial instability. It physically hurts to look down at a computer for
32:08as little as five or ten minutes at a time. It feels a little unprofessional to be in a
32:13busy environment and have a Zoom call.
32:18Sarah's been calling this place working from home since August 2025, when her home broadband started to glitch.
32:36Sarah's lack of speedy broadband is not for want of trying.
32:40In fact, she signed a contract for a super-fast full-fiber connection with her supplier Vodafone in
32:46August 2025, which promised to solve her broadband woes.
32:52But she hit an unexpected hurdle when the engineer came a few weeks later.
32:58It turns out that the technician needed something called a permission to work form.
33:03And I was told that there was a third party who needed to sign, but they could not tell me
33:08who that was.
33:10Permission to work is a type of contractual agreement that's needed by broadband providers
33:15to install cables in other people's land. And in this case, it turned out it was the freeholder
33:22who owned the land on which Sarah's rented house was built who had to sign it off.
33:27Without it, network infrastructure provider OpenReach had to put Sarah's full-fiber installation on hold.
33:36And although the installation seemed like a simple job…
33:40All they need to do is run a cable underground from here to here.
33:49Getting the paperwork signed certainly wasn't.
33:53I had to ask my landlord to communicate to me from the freeholder what pieces of information
34:02they were looking for. Then I had to go to OpenReach and they had to give me answers to their
34:06questions.
34:07And then I had to go back to my landlord who went back to the freeholder. And this went back
34:11and forth
34:11over and over and over. So I was really feeling stuck. I was really feeling overlooked and really frustrated.
34:21By November, Sarah had been working in the coffee shop for three months with no indication of progress
34:28with the freeholder. There was no more information we could give. I was like, wow, this really shouldn't
34:33be this difficult. I was like, do I have to move? Do I have to move to a place where
34:37it's not this
34:38difficult and complex to get internet access? That would be an extreme measure. But it's true to
34:46say that while 78% of homes can access full fiber broadband, the near 20-year rollout program is
34:53sometimes beset by snags. That's because getting full fiber to the street is often the simple part.
35:00The complications tend to arise in the last few meters where the cable enters your home,
35:06since a freeholder can block a householder's right to upgrade their internet speed simply by doing nothing.
35:13It's an all too familiar problem for this Open Reach team, who are out on jobs in Ultringham,
35:19Greater Manchester. And these are all together. Yeah.
35:23Regional Build Manager Tom Westall says the red tape around permissions is frustrating. He delivers
35:29around 5,000 connections to residents in apartment blocks across Merseyside and Cheshire every three months,
35:36but says there are plenty of properties with significant delays, like this block of flats.
35:42So originally this building has probably been within our work stack for just shy of a year.
35:48And there's been a last minute hitch. The actual building itself has been sold to a new owner,
35:54and so we're actually struggling with contact with them at the moment. They're unresponsive.
35:58The previous owner had finally granted permission for the tenants to get full fiber after a year of negotiations,
36:06but the managing agent has changed just before installation, so it's back to the drawing board.
36:14But today there is one site that has finally got the green light after 112 days.
36:20We're here in Ultringham, where we've had the successful go-ahead to upgrade their network to full fiber optics.
36:29Specialist engineer Phil Idden is looking after the installation.
36:33So this is a complex building, and we can upgrade it fully within three days.
36:40So here we have a typical plant room that we find in a multi-dwelling unit. And in this one,
36:46my good colleague is just completing the final set of splicers to upgrade this building. We've got our old
36:55copper network that has served us very well up until this point. But this is fresh cable,
37:02and that will upgrade the network so that it is capable of ultra-fast speeds.
37:08This is all completed, so jobs are good'un.
37:12Back in Lewisham, Sarah has been without fast and reliable broadband for five months,
37:18but, fingers crossed, is due her own visit from OpenReach soon. That's because,
37:24after three months waiting, the freeholder has finally granted permission.
37:29I was like, whoa, is this real? Am I dreaming? So I'm glad it's hopefully over soon.
37:36While Sarah is happy with the progress update, she thinks changes are needed so that tenants
37:42aren't held back by an unresponsive freeholder, since, as it stands, there are no rules compelling
37:48them to engage in the process. I think it needs to be easier for
37:51tenants to gain access to basic services in situations like this. They shouldn't have to be
38:00dependent on a freeholder in order to get something as simple as internet access.
38:07When we put the details of Sarah's case to OpenReach, it told us her situation illustrates how
38:13upgrading customers can be painfully slow, as gaining permission to complete the work
38:18can depend on legal processes, landowner consent, negotiations, and sometimes complex ownership
38:25arrangements, and explained that it's a manual, administrative process as much as a physical
38:31engineering one. When we spoke to the freeholder, it blamed a lack of communication from OpenReach
38:38as the main cause of the delays, while highlighting that its obligations and responsibilities under the
38:45terms of the lease are very limited, and that, in this case, it had acted very reasonably and put a
38:52huge amount of time into resolving the situation.
38:58Well, I'm joined now by tech expert David McClellan to unravel what on earth has been happening with
39:03fibre in the UK. But firstly, I want to share this update from Sarah.
39:08Hi, this is a quick update to say that I have the internet now. I have to relearn what it's
39:13like to have the internet
39:14home, but I am glad this chapter is over. Whoa, I'm not surprised. That is one happy lady. One of
39:22the
39:22things we saw in that film was OpenReach, who are obviously very keen for full fibre to be delivered
39:28around the country, but they are facing issues, aren't they? Yeah, so OpenReach is one of the companies,
39:34the largest of the companies, charged with bringing this full fibre or gigabit broadband to our homes. But
39:39actually getting that full fibre into our homes is proving really, really difficult and fraught with
39:45red tape because of landlords, of landowners, freehold owners of blocks of flats and things like that.
39:52Now, there was a piece of legislation called the Renters' Rights Act, and that gained royal assent late
39:57in 2025. Now, at one point, it looked as though that would mean that landlords, that owners of properties
40:05would need to respond within a much shorter timeframe that would speed up this whole process.
40:11Unfortunately, that was pulled out of the act just before it gained royal assent. But the good news is
40:17that the government launched a consultation late in 2025 to not only include people who are tenants,
40:24but also include people who live in these high-rise blocks of flats to make sure that their voices are
40:30heard.
40:31So, I've got a good idea. We are going to do a quick speed test. And when I say we,
40:36I'm going to be asking the questions and you're going to be doing the answers.
40:38OK, OK.
40:39Your starter for one. What is full fibre?
40:42OK, so full fibre broadband is the fastest type of broadband we can get into our homes,
40:46where that super-fast fibre cable comes right into our homes, doesn't stop in the cabinet by the
40:51side of the road.
40:51Why might I want full fibre?
40:53Full fibre is super-fast, doesn't slow down at busy times, it's far more reliable,
40:57and importantly, it's future-proof. There's a lot of scope for growth in there.
41:02Is my existing broadband going away?
41:04Copper lines are gradually being phased out and replaced by full fibre,
41:09but there are no national plans to rip and replace the old copper quite yet.
41:13What will having fibre broadband mean I can do that I couldn't before?
41:16Well, things like working from home more reliably, watching television, live stream videos,
41:21even at busy times without buffering, better video calls. Basically, you'll be able to do all of
41:26the things that you want to do without the kind of spinny wheels that you can get sometimes.
41:31What does it look like outside my home and inside my home?
41:34Really good question. So, essentially, a new line going over the telegraph pole to the outside
41:38of your house or underground to a little junction box on the outside of the house,
41:42going into your house, into another box, into your broadband router. So, very similar to what
41:46you've already got.
41:47Do I have to have fibre?
41:48No. If you're moving into a new-build home, then you might have no choice, but generally speaking,
41:53you won't have to. But for all the reasons above, you might actually want to have it.
41:59Quickfire is over. Thank you.
42:02Well, David McClelland, at the end of that round, you have scored maximum points,
42:07and we look forward to seeing you in the next round. Thank you, Julia.
42:12If you've got a problem and you think our team might be able to help,
42:15there are lots of ways you can get in touch. You can email us at ripoffbritain at bbc.co.uk,
42:22or send us a WhatsApp message to 033 0 678 1321. We're also on Facebook. Just search for BBC Rip
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42:42Please include your phone number if you can, and don't send us any original documents,
42:47as we won't be able to return them.
42:52Well, that's just about it for today. But if you've missed anything that we've talked about,
42:56from how to spot and cancel subscription payments to how you can check the type of
43:01ground that your home is actually built on, then you can always catch up this programme
43:05and many others on BBC iPlayer. There's also loads of advice on all sorts of other subjects
43:10on our website, bbc.co.uk slash ripoffbritain. For today, though, thank you so much for joining
43:17us. And from everyone on the team, it's time to say goodbye. Bye-bye.
43:27Bye-bye.
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