Retrospective build over agreement with Thames Water

wp2b

Hello
I am new to posting on these forums, though have read many helpful ones so far!
My fiance and I are currently near to exchange on buying a property. Unfortunately, we discovered on Fri that the conservatory of the house is built over a public sewer, and there is no build over agreement with Thames Water. This means that there is always a small chance that they could come and tear the conservatory down if they needed access to the sewer!
We have looked in to indemnities but this would only cover re-build, and not the possibility of having the conservatory pulled down, and not being allowed to rebuild it - hence ending up with a smaller, less valuable house.

So we are now going to say to the seller that we want them to gain retrospective permission for the conservatory (which was built in 1997).
We have found out that this is possible, but Thames Water said it is impossible to predict how long it will take.

Does anyone have experience of applying for a retrospective build over agreement to Thames Water?
Do you think that it is very unlikely they would refuse it after it being there for 11 years?
Any help would be gratefully received!

silvercar

An indemnity should cover the loss in value.

I don't think you will get a cast iron guarantee that they won't tear down the conservatory. If it ever came to it, they would try every possible way of gaining access from the side.

huntersc

I wouldn't want to get into indemnity for an issue like this. We once had problems with an extension over a sewer, Thames were not nice to deal with at all, they're very strict. I would suggest that this sounds very problematic and that the property should be reduced to reflect the issue. What would the house cost without the conservatory (and include the cost of potentially pulling it down) and reduce accordingly. The other thing is that you will run into the same issue when you sell.

lincroft1710

I have an extension built over sewer, with a new proper council approved manhole cover. I understand extn been there for over 30 yrs, but doubt if it has water authority approval (not in Thames Water area). Depending on construction, conservatory can add anything from nothing to a few thousand. Personally I would value this conservatory at 50% of its value addition and adjust my offer accordingly.

Rebchappers

The first house that me and my partner were going to buy had this problem. The indemnity policy that we were advised to get by our solicitor ONLY covered the lender.... not the purchaser, so please check this, if this is the route you are going to go down.

Incidentally, we later found ( just before exchange) that the sewer had actually collapsed due to the extension being built over it illegally.... luckily we discovered this before we exchanged contracts and so swiftly pulled out.... this would have cost thousands to repair as we would have been responsible.

Please make sure you check, and double check, everything before you exchange as this could prove to be a very costly mistake.

wp2b

Thanks all for your replies, very helpful.
Our seller is considering the retrospective agreement and we are still considering our options! We have been told that it could potentially take 2-4 weeks but possibly much longer if they can't see what they need to see.
Any more experiences of public sewers and extensions?
Thanks again for responses.

ryan85k

wp2b wrote: »

Thanks all for your replies, very helpful.
Our seller is considering the retrospective agreement and we are still considering our options! We have been told that it could potentially take 2-4 weeks but possibly much longer if they can't see what they need to see.
Any more experiences of public sewers and extensions?
Thanks again for responses.

Hi, I used to work with clients on issues such as this. An indemnity would have been the best solution, it would have cost a few hundred quid and absolve you of responsibility. This would have had to have been completed before Thames Water were informed, because now they will have it on record and will pursue, which will be misery for the seller if you don't purchase his home.

I would need to know the following to make a judgement:-

1) was the conservatory built over the manhole or just over the sewer pipe.
2) is there space for a manhole on the property over 1.5meteres away from the foundations of the conservatory (so basically, does the conservatory cover the whole width of the garden).

If there is room for a new manhole over 1.5metres away from the foundations (on the sellers property), and the manhole isn't the first on the run, then Thames Water are likely to give retrospective consent on the condition that a new manhole is constructed (which would cost £1000+).

Otherwise, they wont give consent at all. I will point out however that a 2-4 week time frame is very optimistic for Thames Water, I would say 5-8 weeks. The quickest I ever had from them was 4 weeks, the longest 14 weeks.

MeGrumps

I have a similar problem. I am soon to exchange on a house with a single-storey extension over a sewer pipe and they do not seem to have a build-over agreement from Southern Water.

My solicitor will probably advise the indemnity solution. The extension was built over 21 years ago and there does not seem to have been any problems at all. The sewer originates on the property. There is room to reroute the sewer if necessary.

Is the indemnity solution good enough? Would it cover rerouting costs?

Richard_Webster

Can't see how you can get an indemnity policy if Thames Water have already been approached about the matter.

MeGrumps

Thanks Richard.

Actually it's Southern Water in my case, not Thames Water, and no-one has approached them (apart from the HIP supplier who requested a CON29DW search from Southern Water). So is it still possible to get an insurance?

tek-monkey

This is exactly the problem I'm having, how did you get on?

EDIT: Damnit, they're both inactive users