Shared water supply with new neighbour

tmm_aka_tracy

Hi all,

I've just bought an 1890's mid terrace house, which I'm currently refurbishing.

My house is where the main water supply enters both my house and the neighbour, which isn't unique. However, next doors supply pipe through the cellar, and which has a stopcock is not being used. Instead, my water pipes, which run right through the house branch off at both the kitchen and bathroom. This means that when I turn off my stopcock inside my house, neighbour has no water.

My builder and plumber haven't seen anything like this before, and want to cut the pipes. I rang united utilities for advice And they also said that they have not heard of this unless the two houses were once joined (they weren't). But what UU have said is that I can't cut the pipe off because Neighbour has a legal right to water. They, of course, said they can't intervene beyond the boundary Of either house, and that if I were to get a meter, I would pay for neighbours water.

She's quite an old lady, and UU have told me that she is equally responsible for any damage caused by broken pipes within my house. My builder couldn't access her cellar area to check her input pipe so we don't know why the water is set up this way.

My buildings insurance states that while unoccupied, the water should be turned off, but I can't do this, as this would affect neighbour. I havnt told my insurance yet, but I know I'm taking a risk.

I think the neighbour is going to need to get all of her plumbing renewed (even if the supply comes through my cellar) and this makes me feel awful (my plumber is costing an arm and a leg).

I'm at a zoos as to what to do.

Can any body shed light on this please?

Many thanks in advance.

silvercar

Speak to your solicitor; if there is a shared supply pipe then its maintenance and responsibilities should be set out in the deeds. If the searches showed the pipe is all yours then the water board may need to lay a pipe to your neighbours. It may be that UU have a responsibility to do this and their comment to you may be to avoid them doing expensive work.

BASFORDLAD

Get your neighbour to arrange with UU to have her own supply

DVardysShadow

It is going to take time to sort out and money. You need to check that this is not covered by the deeds - it probably is not - but do get it checked out. I would imagine what has happened is that her plumbing froze up and burst in the winter of 1961 or somesuch and the present arrangement was a temporary or cheap fix. So I suspect that it will not be viable to reinstate the connection from her stopcock without replacing it. So your problem will be getting her to pay for the necessary works.

However, it should be a relatively straight forward job to connect her bathroom system to her kitchen system and to connect her kitchen system to a new feed in her cellar - at the same time capping off the feeds from your house.

wannabe_sybil

I am a bit concerned.

Our water supply comes from the house at the back of us. If they turn off the water we have no water. We were without water for a day because some scallies tried to steal the copper piping when the house was empty.

If we turn off our water then next door to us, downstream as it were, gets no water.

Is this a problem? I've been just accepting it for years. Both properties, the one that our water comes from and the one that our water goes to are owned by the same appalling landlord.

(Sorry for thread hijack, I just didn't realise it could be a problem).

silvercar

wannabe_sybil wrote: »

I am a bit concerned.

Our water supply comes from the house at the back of us. If they turn off the water we have no water. We were without water for a day because some scallies tried to steal the copper piping when the house was empty.

If we turn off our water then next door to us, downstream as it were, gets no water.

Is this a problem? I've been just accepting it for years. Both properties, the one that our water comes from and the one that our water goes to are owned by the same appalling landlord.

(Sorry for thread hijack, I just didn't realise it could be a problem).

There is a big difference between a shared supply pipe that has legal obligations enshrined in the house deeds and a botched supply from your immediate neighbours pipes.

With a shared supply pipe, there will be a supply pipe in the road, where the pipe joins the main supply pipe, and individual stopc0cks coming off the shared pipe.

wannabe_sybil

silvercar wrote: »

There is a big difference between a shared supply pipe that has legal obligations enshrined in the house deeds and a botched supply from your immediate neighbours pipes.

With a shared supply pipe, there will be a supply pipe in the road, where the pipe joins the main supply pipe, and individual stopc0cks coming off the shared pipe.

There is no supply pipe in the road.

I suppose I had better look at the deeds - thank you for your advice. It is really helpful.

poppysarah

UU will reconnect FREE you if you lay the pipes in your house to the pavement. But they want to inspect the pipes. I can see neighbours not wanting to do this if it costs them money to get their pipes redone.

There should be stop taps in the street to turn off shared supplies - but they are frequently covered over. Have had UU out to a house to find street stop tap and they had a poke about and couldn't find it, so I stopped some UU bloke who was listening for leaks and he got his dowsing sticks out and found it. So after a month or three they came back and re-instated the street stop tap.

However you're not supposed to use that - and as the supply is shared it'll cut three houses off here. But if there's ever an emergency it means the water can be stopped.

Water pipes are shown on the water searches that were in the HIP (A reason I liked HIPs)

namratasnv

The same thing is what I am suffering from but, the advantage is having a supply pipe on road which is a good option for me.

tmm_aka_tracy

Thanks for all of your replies, very interesting.

The contract did state that there was a shared water supply, which we assumed was the cellar route. Its not very clear, just that next doors water comes through the property.

That was a reasonalbe explination DVS, but i suspect something more recent as the shared bathroom pipe is a flexi pipe, so maximum 20 yrs old I'd suggest.

I'm going to see the neighbour tomorrow, she's a bit lonely, so makes a point of talking to me when its there. she knows its a problem, but cant explain how or why it happend. I've said that we will need to get it sorted, but that was before I did my research.

I've spoken to the water regulartory body and theyve suggested the lead replacement scheme could be the way to go, as they could reroute the water to her boundry, but she will still need to connect inside, which will need a plumber.

Poor thing has lived quite happily with this arrangement for years and years, and then these young ones come along and mess it all up. LOL.

mcc100

This is not UU's responsibility and they will not do any work for free.

The lead free replacement scheme only applies if all lead pipework is replaced in all properties concerned and UU will only renew their part of the pipework within the public highway.

They will not provide individual supplies free of charge.