Neighbour wants to cut-off our water supply!!! -Advice Needed

Doozergirl

ceridwen wrote: »

People cant realistically expect to run their waterpipes through someone else's house.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. It would be better if you replied to questions where you knew you had the answer instead of simply frightening people with a fabrication. Typing for the sake of having something to do is not helpful to people with genuine issues.

It is common for old terraces of houses to have shared services, in fact it's very normal. Indeed, if it has always been there, then the OP has the very arguable, established right to obtain their water supply over the neighbour's land in that way, even if it is not in the deeds.

There are hundreds of thousands of houses with rights to run services over other people's properties, new and old. You are completely wrong to say that people shouldn't have it.

I think the correct advice has been offered in the form of discussing this with the water supplier and asking them to come out and check whether the current set up is acceptable, meaning the neighbour has to back off, or whether the water board will install a new supply. If they are working on the party wall, then the OP should get theselves a party wall surveyor immediately, which should also be at the cost of your neighbour and get their assistance.

Either way, it's unlikely the OP should have to incur cost to reroute water to suit the neighbour. It would be nice to accommodate them and see if it can be moved, but not that you should be paying to reroute a service to which you are entitled, to make their lives easier, OP.

ic

Doozergirl wrote: »

There are hundreds of thousands of houses with rights to run services over other people's properties, new and old.

My own house has an old shared water pipe running under it (even though I have my own direct supply from the road), plus I have the shared electrics box on the back of my house. The cables run from it to the rest of the houses in the terrace.

All very normal - when houses were hooked up with these services as they became available, they were clearly done on the cheap.

Enterprise_1701C

Surely if this has to be paid for, then they should pay for it as they are the ones that want the work doing in the first place? If they cannot have the building works done without this happening, then it should be classed as part of the building works.

Nothing legal - only opinion, but surely the right moral standing?

pleasedelete

Honestly. I am sure that the water board will out in a new supply for you for free. I have had this twice once Yorkshire and once nothunbria. Just charm the man they send out and be nice.

BaldPlumber

ceridwen wrote: »

The moral standpoint here - which I guess you might have realised - is that it is the norm for peeps to have their waterpipe coming straight in from outside (underneath the communal territory of pavement). People cant realistically expect to run their waterpipes through someone else's house.

I dont suppose you knew for one minute that this was the case - and had probably assumed your water piping WAS only coming through "communal" territory and not someone else's house.

It is very unfortunate for you that this has proven to be the case and I would be upset in your position to find that some damn fool workman some decades ago had put my house in this position and put me at risk of having to spend money to put it right.

But - that is the way this situation should be handled - ie you get the Water Board to re-route your water pipe the way it should have gone in the first place (ie NOT involving someone else's house) and hope that they won't charge you for it or that maybe your insurance company might pay for it.

So - I sympathise with the unexpected bill you might be about to get - but realistically its not possible to expect someone else to have a neighbours water pipe running round the walls of THEIR cellar. Look at it from your neighbours viewpoint - you've probably upset them already with making that suggestion to them and they will now be scared that you might "create trouble" for them because of a problem that is ultimately yours and nothing to do with them. In their position - then I wouldnt have expected for one minute to encounter anything to do with a neighbours house when I started doing work on my own house.

So - you really do need to "do the right thing" here - accept that this work has to be done. However - the good news is that I think there is a good chance that the "damn fool workman" involved was some long-gone Water Board employee and that therefore the Water Board will be the ones who will have to cover the cost involved to put right this poor workmanship.

Look at it this way - they could have just gone ahead and removed this odd bit of pipe on their territory that served no purpose to them and you would have just wondered what had happened to your water supply. They have had the decency to tell you in advance that your water supply will be affected and you will now have to "make other arrangements" - ie get that workmanship put right. By telling you in advance they have saved you endless trouble wondering why your water supply no longer works.

What an ill-considered and badly thought out reply.

Apart from the wrongness of it all, did you not consider it more likely that the damn fool workman was probably told what to do by his damn fool boss? unless of course his Victorian boss was, I don't know, doing some blue sky thinking or perhaps a dash of focus grouping or something equally useful.

27col

In 1900 a good proportion of people would probably not have had an internal water supply. So would have been absolutely thrilled if they did, and would definitely not have given the slightest consideration as to how the supply pipe had been run. If the pipe is original it is likely to be made of lead. Get a new supply pipe laid and then at least you won't be drinking water from a lead supply pipe.