Buying House with Private Drains. Advice needed please

Plugman99

Hi first time poster long time lurker.

Nearly to exchange on a house. We have heard that the whole estate (29 properties) is on private drains. Alarm bells have started to ring. Still we can get indemnity insurance but still have to do some legwork to get the money back from the cover as it covers for major problems only (ie if the drains collapse and major investigation is needed). One clause I dont like is the one that says we have to employ a solicitor to send the residents a letter to get any money back (the insurance company sees this as a reasonable step to take). We don't have a management company as they have ceased to exist. On the plus side the properties are only 15 years old so am I worrying unnecessarily? I am thinking of a camera survey to check the drains out but do I do the full estate (costing £550 + vat or just my house £110 + vat) I think its only necessary for the basic survey but am I right.

G_M

What do you mean by 'private drains'?

My neighbour and I share a private drain leading to a septic tank. We share cost for an annual pump out: much cheaper than paying the water company for drainage!

On the other hand is this a private drain leading to the public drains? Do you still pay for drainage to the water company? Is there a charge or document in the Title detailing your responsibility? How is maintenance shared between the 29 properties?

This need not necessarily be in any way a problem but you do need to understand how it works.

As for the condition/age of the drains, why not knock on a few doors? At least one of the other 28 houses must be owned by a helpful soul who'll tell you all you need to know!

tealady

Hi
I think you might be confusing drains and sewers. Usually you will have drains (which are your responsibility) and qa house of that age will be connected to a private sewer. The drains are the home owners responsibility, if a private sewer becomes blocked or damaged then those upstream foot the bill.

[Deleted User]

we have private drainage and it goes a long way here down to the sewer. Our main problem is due to some residents putting inappropriate matter into the drains ie fat, cotton buds, cotton wool, wipes etc and this has caused a blockage a couple of times, until we re-educated them. The blockage and washing out cost a lot of money but was divided between all the leasehold properties

Our new drainage links in to a long length of victorian drainage and the old drainage had been inspected. The drains did concern us before we bought but the actual structure is sound. You should be more concerned with what is put down than with the structure in a 15 year old complex

Nosht

Beware of taking out a maintenance contract.
I was offered a free one by Home???? offering 24 hour service &c. & after claiming twice for a blocked drain they tried to renew the contract by stating in the very small print that I could not claim more than twice in a year, so I cancelled it.

N.

vet8

People worry unnecessarily about non mains drains. We have lived for almost 30 years in houses with either a cess pool or septic tank and they are no problem at all. They need emptying once a year at the most and are FAR cheaper than being on mains drainage.

As this area has no main drains lots of small housing estates are built with private drains and they are all O.K.

keith969

My old house was on private sewerage - the whole street was in fact. We only found this out when one house had their drains overflow; turned out to be a problem with tree roots in the drains and a survey plus jetting cost about £1000.

Richard_Webster

I Live in a house built in 1953 with a private sewer that connects into the public sewer 100-200 metres away. My next door neighbour but one has lived in his house since it was built (!) and he confirms that the private sewer has never been blocked in all that time. This kind of situation is very common.

There are thousands of houses on estates built particularly in the 1950s-70s with significant lengths of non-adopted private sewers. They could need unblocking/repair/replacement and the cost would then fall on those using them. It is a possible problem but one loads of people live with.

It is also one that Drainage Searches do not really deal with. The search will tell you whether a house is connected to the public sewerage system and it will include a plan showing the location of nearby public sewers. Mostly you can make reasonable assumptions about roughly where the connection is, but the search does not establish conclusively that the property is connected to the nearest public sewer. There could be a private sewer run of half a mile or so to another public sewer. If that private sewer got blocked you could be liable for part of the cost of its repair.

phead

Plugman99 wrote: »

Hi first time poster long time lurker.

Nearly to exchange on a house. We have heard that the whole estate (29 properties) is on private drains.

April next year all private sewers directly connected to the sewer network transfer to water company ownership, so I guess you won't need to worry about it.

http://www.southernwater.co.uk/DomesticCustomers/whoOwnsTheSewers/

You will only take responsibility for the leg that only serves your house alone.

Plugman99

Thanks for all the replies. In answer to the questions I am talking about private drains leading to private sewers leading to a public drain which is in a run of around 200 meters. The seller has finally agreed to pay for the liability cover but is this the best cover you can get?

I am also having a camera sewer survey done and have two choices are either from my property to the main public sewer or for the whole of the estate down. My feeling is the survey from my property down is sufficient as I cannot see what extra whole survey offers. Any thoughts?

I get the impression that its rare if it happens and I am fairly sure that I will go ahead if the sewer survey doesn't find fault. Any thoughts on this?

I have read about the adoption of private sewers by water companies but as yet that was a proposal by the previous government and as far as I am aware there is no guarantee that this will go ahead or when.

Richard_Webster

Thanks for all the replies. In answer to the questions I am talking about private drains leading to private sewers leading to a public drain which is in a run of around 200 meters. The seller has finally agreed to pay for the liability cover but is this the best cover you can get?

I am also having a camera sewer survey done and have two choices are either from my property to the main public sewer or for the whole of the estate down. My feeling is the survey from my property down is sufficient as I cannot see what extra whole survey offers. Any thoughts?

I get the impression that its rare if it happens and I am fairly sure that I will go ahead if the sewer survey doesn't find fault. Any thoughts on this?

I am not saying don't have the surveys you are talking about but I have to tell you that I cannot remember any client of mine ever carrying out such detailed investigations of private sewers.