Combined drainage with next door .. what is our liability ?

sirish1979

Hi all,

I have recently moved to our new house after a long conveyancing period.
after a week the neighbours came to see us and they were saying that our drainage from the bathroom is mixing with their main pipe and she wants us to change it immediately.

We didnt observe this before and came to know just at that time.

She was actually very threatening telling that we are tresspassing her property and she may sue us for that. and if we dont change it and if there is any problem of flooding then we will be responsible to cover all the damages it seems.

I dont remeber if our surveyor mentioned this in the report or not.

so i dont have any idea how should we go about it??
Any suggesstion will be of great help .

regards,
Sirish

SailorSam

I think you should give your Solicitor and tell him what they've said.
My house is about 70yrs old and both mine and next door go into the same drain and then this goes in the direction that i presume the rest of the road all join into it.
Maybe modern houses aren't built like that but however they were made must be legal otherwise we'd all have to be digging up the roads to have them re-done. If she's not happy why didn't she ask the previous owners, i think she's trying to pull a fast one.

poppysarah

What do the deeds say?

Ones with shared drains will have details about them...

(Or can you see that some work has been done recently?)

SailorSam

This seems to have some interesting information on, it's from Tameside Council but probably others will be the same, it talks about the different sorts of drains and sewers and who is responsible for them. And 'cos it may be a public health problem the Council may get involved if the people responsible can't sort it out themselves between them.
Blocked Drain/Sewers Frequently Asked Questions

casperlarue

I agree, talk to your solicitor regarding what your neighbour has said. The majority of foul and storm water drains run across several properties before they reach the main drain in the road, some systems are even combined where all water goes into one pipe.

Did yopu have a drainage search done as part of your purchase? Generally speaking, several houses will share one length of pipe.....each property is responsible for the bit of pipe on their land. Just because your bath water runs into the pipe that passes through her land doesn't mean you are trespasing!

DannyboyMidlands

I wouldn't be too concerned. All drainage converges somewhere ie. each house doesn't have it's own individual pipe running all the way to the sea. Generally there will be a main sewer running down the road or across the back gardens and all houses will conect into it one way or another. It's a shared pipe rather than "hers" and no big deal.

hcb42

We have shared drains in 110yr old house, and we do get it backing up a fair bit, meaning one or both of us cannot flush the loos easily. We get the drain company out and tend to split the bill, although it can be a bit of a pain at times, perhaps they have a similar issue, and she wants to try and find a way out of it.

00ec25

there are plenty of situations where systems are shared before they finally meet the public sewer, these shared ones are legally defined as "private sewers" - as opposed to a "private drain" which connects only 1 property direct to the "public sewer".

A private sewer is a shared responsibility amongst the householders which share that system.
Obviously on council house estates they were all designed that way but is is quite common for the system to be used on non local authority estates as well.

as for liability, then the neighbour needs to be told that as from Oct 2011 responsibility for all such "private sewers" will be transferreed to the respective water company and they will have to deal with all problems at their own cost, hoiseholders will no longer have to pay for it

if there is a problem after Oct 2011 the water company must deal with, and pay for, its remedy

Richard_Webster

our drainage from the bathroom is mixing with their main pipe

Please explain more fully what is meant by "their main pipe"

As others have said it is very common for drainage form one property to got through drains/sewers under a neighbouring property.

If it is public sewer then there is nothing the neighbour can do about it. if not then there may well be a right for this to occur in the title. Alternatively if the drainage connection has been there a long time prescriptive right might have been obtained.

G_M

sirish1979 wrote: »

Hi all,

..after a week the neighbours came to see us and they were saying that our drainage from the bathroom is mixing with their main pipe and she wants ....
Sirish

As Richard says, you need to clarify this. 'Main pipe' usually means water mains supply. So is she saying there are leaks in both your waste pipe and her Mains supply, and your sewage is seeping into her water supply pipe? If so, clearly this is very dangerous in terms of health, but since BOTH pipes would need to be broken, the reponsibility is shared.

If she means your waste water pipe joins their waste pipe, and is designed that way, well presumably it has always been like that.

But please clarify.

sirish1979

thanks all for the help.
Just contacted my solicitor who did the conveyancing and came to know that according to the deeds its joint responsibility i am going to speak to my neighbour about it then .