House extension over sewer pipe

piperm87

Hi all,

I've recently brought a house STC. Got all the solicitors involved past week (luckily mine is my uncle who is acting for us).

The house we bought was sold previously but the buyer pulled out just before the completion date, Wary of course, i tried to find out just why to no avail. Now my uncle is on the case he managed to find out today through his channels and means and, discovered that its had an extension on the back which has been built over the main sewer pipe in the rear garden.

He said that there has been some new regulations come out over the recent past saying that it all needs to be checked and approved. He said the extension could of been built before they came out but there's no way of knowing when it was built.

Could this hinder the sale in anyway and what could the cost of it all be to get it all certified.

He's also unsure of a manhole been in rear garden but this could be installed if i need to reroute the pipes around the house

Regards

Matt

piperm87

Any help or advice?

Yorkie1

Hopefully others will be along in due course, but I suspect that a build-over agreement was not obtained from the water company before the extension was done. I think this has always (not just really recently) been needed - perhaps as part of B Regs??

I imagine the issues could therefore be related to a) whether the extension is at risk from a collapsed drain, b) whether the water authority could dig up the extension if it needed to access the drain, c) lack of paperwork on the B Regs / consent side of things - with ongoing issues when onward sale is considered in due course, and d) insurance.

The rules did change in the last year or so, making the water company responsible for more drains than previously, but I am not sufficiently familiar with the details to comment.

ognum

I am aware that you need permission from the water authority to build I think it's within two meters of the sewer pipes.

This permission is I writing and is needed for building regs. Does the property have building regs permission.

I am sure you can talk to the water authority to check whether permissions have been granted.

AlexMac

I'm no expert, but conveyancing solicitors have, in recent years, been much more rigorous in asking when building works or extensions were done and, even where planning permission was not required because the work was within 'permitted development' rights, demanding written evidence that work was done to building regs (which almost alway apply) in a way that satisfied the local council Building Control officer. So your uncle's anticipating a question which you will be asked if you ever sell on.

If unauthorised work was done it would have to have been by a really incompetent bodger to require the extension to be demolished, as generally everything is fixable, even retrospectively, at worst, possibly requiring surveyors aor engineers' reports; but its probably OK. However, while the advice above ' I am sure you can talk to the water authority to check whether permissions have been granted..' sounds reasonable- it's not your problem til contracts are exchanged; it's really up to the vendor to truthfully answer written enquiries (and you can ask specific Q's such as this one) or be done for misrepresentation if you go ahead and it later costs you money or loses you a sale. Ask Uncle. Good luck.

Yorkie1

I would not talk to the water company (or the council) unless my solicitor suggested I should do so - by doing this, you prevent an indemnity policy being arranged by the seller or anyone else.

Do it through enquiries with your solicitor to the seller's solicitor. It's up to them to sort it out.

cwcw

We bought our house with an extension over the sewer last year. It is a sewer shared by 4 properties before draining into the mains sewer under the road. I understood from research that this was previously considered a private shared drain, and each house was responsible for the part of the drain on their own land. This then changed a couple of years ago when the water authorities inherited responsibility for any shared drains, which now became public sewers. Previously these would not have shown on search results, but now do.

Overnight, extensions up and down the country that were built over private shared drains at the time, that the homeowner had every right to build over as they were responsible for it at the time, were suddenly built over public sewers owned by the water authority and with no "build over agreement" in place (obviously, as they were not responsible when the extension was built).

I looked further and further into it and could not believe that the situation above had not been considered when ownership was changed to water authorities. One would think some kind of clear and definitive guideline would be in place, along the lines of "sewers previously classed as private with extensions built over them before the change in ownership are exempt". However, that is too easy and nothing concrete exists. In the end, given the extension has been up over 30 years, had planning permission at the time, has a manhole for access nearby, and the seller agreed to buy an indemnity policy for the lack of build over agreement, we decided to go ahead.

I can't say this is the same situation as what your purchase is, but the change in sewer ownership did, overnight, create a lot of situations like our purchase.

PS. We pulled out of another purchase last year, because of many issues but one of which was yet another extension over a public sewer. That one though, was a mains public sewer that went under the road for most of the run, collecting everyone's waste on the way, before passing under the extension. In that situation, such a sewer was always public and would have needed permission to build over. We decided that was too problematic and risky, and added to the other issues it had, we pulled out.

piperm87

Thanks for all your help guys I really appreciate it

I've not heard anything off my solicitor today so not quite sure where were at at the minute.

I'm tempted to go book another viewing on the house just to go see whats going on with it all ... I'm just a little put off because it's the Vendor who will be there and don't want to feel disrespectful towards them in some way

piperm87

Right just to let you all know.

My solicitor dug up some dirt about the sewer pipe and came back to me today

He said the extension was built in the mid 1970's and it isnt built over the sewer pipe but its built about a foot away from the man hole cover in the rear garden.. however the seller as taken out a imdemity policy over it for us as cover so should all be back on !!