Neighbour dispute with drains, advice needed

zzzLazyDaisy

Hi I am posting this for a friend.

He lives in one of a pair of semis that were both previously owned by the owner of the adjoining house who is a builder and 'modernised' both before selling one off and keeping the other for himself.

As part of the 'improvements' he built a lean-to that runs across the back off both semis, and installed downstairs toilets in each one. The drains for the soil pipe from my friend's toilet run into the next door neighbour's drain (drains were laid by the neighbour)

The next door neighbour has a water meter, so he rigged up a system to collect water from both lean-to roofs which flushes his fownstairs loo. A while back he had a go at my friend because he was getting moss from my friends roof into his flushing system. Shortly after that my friend's downstairs loo got blocked. Lots of efforts by him and the cost of two separate plumbers to sort the problem, and he now discovers that the neighbour has blocked the drain off so his soil pipe can no longer drain into the neighbours drains. The plumber went round today to try and sort it out but got a barrage of abuse. My friend has notified environmental health, but what else can he do?

Many thanks

happyinflorida

Have a look for help, support and advice on this website "neighboursfromhell.co.uk" - it's very good. You may be better to look on there or if there isn't any advice, add a message on there.
Best of luck, your friend certainly has my sympathy as having a bad neighbour can make your life complete hell.

zzzLazyDaisy

Thanks, for this I'll look there.

The latest is the environmental health are going round tomorrow. It seems that the neighbour had deliberately capped the soil pipe off on his side! It seems that the EH can serve an order on the neighbour, so we will see what happens.

The annoying thing is that this has already cost my friend £200 in plumbers fees trying to unblock the toilet. The first plumber gave up, it was the second one that realised what was going on!

savemoney

zzzLazyDaisy you have my sympathy living next door to a complete and utter nutter

lifesuckssometimes

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

The annoying thing is that this has already cost my friend £200 in plumbers fees trying to unblock the toilet. The first plumber gave up, it was the second one that realised what was going on!

Keep receipts and claim off him if they find in your favour. Long shot i know and neighbour disputes can turn nasty. so keep calm and let environmental health act on your behalf.. GOOD LUCK

zzzLazyDaisy

happyinflorida wrote: »

Have a look for help, support and advice on this website "neighboursfromhell.co.uk" - it's very good. You may be better to look on there or if there isn't any advice, add a message on there.
Best of luck, your friend certainly has my sympathy as having a bad neighbour can make your life complete hell.

Hi, I have tried to find this site, both by typing in the url and googling, but nothing is coming up. Any ideas? Thanks

zzzLazyDaisy

Well! here is an update...

Environmental health can't/won't help - they can only step in if the actual PROBLEM is on the neighbour's land. The problem - ie the blocked toilet is on my friend's land, the fact that the REASON for the problem is on the neighbour's land is irrelevant! They said it is a civil matter told him to see a solicitor, but the cost would be ridiculous (this neighbour is an ex-policeman. He is unlikely to be bothered by a simple solicitor's letter and would probably view any legal action as a challenge).

I'd be happy to help him take a small claims court action, but don't know enough about these things to know what claim to bring.

This man is a nutter - two neighbours have moved to get away from him, so it is a delicate situation...

alanobrien

You said he built the lean to on both properties. Normally this means a right of amenity / access to the pipework has been granted to both houses. Your friend needs to check the paperwork that came with the house he may find he already has a legal right to access. If he doesn't find that in writing then he has a significant problem as its unlikely he will be able to enforce access.

zzzLazyDaisy

My friend is going to obtain the title deeds from the land registry, but I doubt that these new drains will be on the deeds as the thing has been jerry built and it is unlikely that the neighbour will have gone to the trouble of having the deeds altered.

However, since the neighbour put the drains in himself, and both my friend and the previous owner have enjoyed a flushing toilet until now, it seems to me there is probably an implied right to use the shared drain and to access to the manhole cover on the neighbours land for the purpose of maintenance and freeing any blockage.

But I cannot, for the life of me, find out how such a right might be enforced in the face of a neighbour who refuses to allow access to the man hole cover.

Phil_L_2

Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992 may help in this case.

zzzLazyDaisy

Thanks Phil, I'll look into this.