Advice after job carried out on drainage (by someone else)

TinTin_57

Hi

Hope I'm on the right board here and someone would please give me their opinion.

I live on a row of 4 houses that are on a slight hill, mine being at the highest point. So lets call mine house 1, the others 2,3,4.

Last night those at the bottom of the row in house 4 said their drains had backed up and they couldn't flush the loo etc and it also turned out that house 3 had the same problem, he asked me if mine were ok and I said they were. The guy in house 4 then called out a drain specialist to fix the issue. After some routing around down manholes they came to one on my driveway which connects us all to the main sewer in the road adjacent to the drive, a distance of some 3-4 metres.

Turns out the blockage was between the manhole in the drive and the main sewer. Of course being at the top of the hill I wouldn't notice any blockages for a long time but houses 3 and 4 being lower would as in this case.

Once the guy cleared the blockage, a 2 minute job, he went down and said that it was waiting to happen as the builders (13 years ago) hadn't built them properly and there was concrete blocking the path to the main sewer which he then chipped out and said it's unlikely it would now happen again.

So, house number 4 told me that the guy was charging £70 for the work and house 3 and 4 had agreed to split this between them. However house 4 asked me would I not like to chip in with a bonus as he had sorted out a longer term thing for us all. In the heat of the moment I said I would stick £20 in extra as it was late at night etc etc.

It occured to me afterwards though, if my drains weren't blocked (yet) should I be paying?
Then, I spoke to the lady at house 3, she told me that the job actually only cost £60 and thats all house 4 gave him!!!
So I was giving the guy £20 in good faith and he is not passing it on but in effect lessening his own bill.

So, at this moment in time I have not yet paid house 4 this money as I had no cash last night to do so. He will be expecting it though. However the advice I wanted is:
a) should I be paying anything?
b) given house 4's apparant dishonesty should I now pay anything at all anyway?

I know he will be giving me a knock tonight for this but in all truth, this happened later at night, I found out the guy in house 4 was trying to dupe me and because of that I really did lose sleep over it. Ok, it's only £20 but its the manner it's been done in as I don't personally work that way and it worries me when others do. I am not looking forward to a confrontation and need to choose my words carefully.

As an added bit of info, house 2 are on holiday and nothing was said about what they are chipping in. The drains specialist also said that the 4 houses in a row behind ours also feed into this same manhole so they potentially would have been affected also at some point.

Thanks for your help in advance
TinTin_57

ormus

when you say the drive, do you mean the street you live in? or a driveway?
if that street manhole is shared then the council or the water board have to clear it out free of charge.
and if the houses were built before 1937, then those shared drains are cleared free of charge too. even if the manhole is on your property.

houses built after that date have to share the costs. and that means all the houses upstream of any blockage.

TinTin_57

The houses are 13 years old. Also the manhole where the blockage was, was in my driveway so on my property.

This being the case then that anyone upstream of the blockage has to share the cost then you reckon I should give him the £20? Well, £15 if we are dividing the amount 4 ways.

ic

In future ask to see the receipt - whenever I've shared costs with neighbours I've shown them the quotes/receipts as proof of what I'm asking them for. As for getting your fiver back - depends who's telling the truth - the neighbour that says its £60 or the neighbour that says it was £80...

Doozergirl

Ask him for a copy of the receipt for your records and give him your share.

It's fair. It is your drain that was blocked, just you had the benefit of not being directly affected by poo floating around!

TinTin_57

Thanks for all these replies. I think this was very much 'cash in hand'. It was a relation of house 3 (brother I think, though a proper drain clearage business) and she was the one that said it was £60 handed over. So, I will go with trying to get a receipt and based on the £60 give him £15

And I heave learned something new about the way these things work. Before today I didn't know about the shared ownership/responsibility thing.

I know house 4 is insured for plumbing/drains with United Utilities and they told him they would only fix the main sewer under the policy. I don't know the ins and outs of that one, that will be upto him to follow up on. Anything between there and his house was upto him to sort, hence him being the lead on this one.

I just don't get the dishonesty bit really on his part with me if the £60 was indeed the real cost. If he has no receipt he'll be getting £15 only

ormus

what about the other 4 houses, behind yours?

TinTin_57

Yep, actually following my last post it did occur to me to ask him about what he planned to do with those behind us as they will be blissfully unawares. I bet tho if he has no receipt..............

Yogibear

My opinion for whats its worth is give him nothing he`s just a bl**dy chancer feeding off the fear of peoples house becoming full of sh*t,this friend of a friend the guy probably paid nothing,surely it`s the councils problem to mainten drains/sewers as it is here in Edinburgh

Sweetaspie

I think you need to say to him you need to see a receipt.

If its legally the case that its not the councils job but home owners to clear blockage then work out how many houses SHOULD be paying, and pay your share in relation to that. its not your problem if the others arent paying (or were not informed). I say this because the guy has been dishonest to you and you need to make that point. Say in light of what you have found out, you've decided to respond in a fair/legal responsibility manner rather than out of neighbourly goodwill. Then say to him before you dish out you need to see a receipt. if no receipt then pay on the basis of £60.

avoid that neighbour!

ormus

scottish law doesnt count for much, south of gretna green.