5 manholes in our newbuild property, garden.

jeanat9

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on this matter. We have recently purchased a new build property and went to see the house for its final snagging a couple of days ago before completion within the next 10 days.
We were pretty annoyed to find out that there are 5 manholes in our small garden. 3 of which are bang on in the middle of our tiled terrace. Naturally the developers never notified us of their existence. After looking at the plans only 3 manholes were ever mentioned.
I have spoken to our solicitor and he seemed to say that it is a matter we should take on personally with the developer but failed to give any good legal advice regarding our customer's right. Effectively nothing was mentioned in our deed about this issue.
Understandably we are worried about potential overflow and bad smell. (potential impact on house price). Also the house is part of a 9 houses development, which seems to mean we will have to grant access to all other owners should there be blockages.

We would be grateful about any advice regarding this matter.

Kind regards,

Jean

Sparx

Have you actually spoken to the developer then to see what they say? Maybe ask for a reduction in the purchase price?

jeanat9

We have given them the option of removing them or give a substantial reduction on the house but have yet to hear from them.
Should it be negative we are unfortunately a bit clueless as to what steps may be available to us.

Mistral001

Have they come up with a reason for the extra manholes? You need to get a reason. Also I suggest that you get them to put it in writing just to make sure that it is nothing to do with easements of sewers across the property (ie sewers supplying other properties). I am surprised that the solicitor has not brought this up as a possibility.

richardw

I'd be worried about your solicitor.

Tiddlywinks

richardw wrote: »

I'd be worried about your solicitor.

^^^ This is exactly how I see it too.

What are you paying the solicitor for exactly?

These manholes sometimes come with rights of access issues so you solicitor should be on the case... how did you choose the solicitor? Is he linked to the developer in any way? His lack of interest is astounding and completely unprofessional.

Put your query in writing to him and instruct him to investigate / advise further.

whalster

Sometimes the number of manholes is a problem from a builders point of view too,if the design of your house has say two soil stacks on the rear servicing a man bathroom and a couple of ensuite bathrooms then maybe you have your downstairs loo all these will require a manhole then maybe you have kitchen waste pipe which would require an inspection chamber , smaller but still visible.Then you may have had to have inspection chambers for top water if they did not permit a ridding eye to a soak away .
All these are ugly and have to me a metre from the soil stacks etc,however if it is in paving of whatever kind you can buy recessed lids which visually will look a lot better ,In fairness I used these on the more expensive end but even so they are only around £30 each so not a deal breaker .
All what is said above is also worth looking at unless each property has its own connection into the adopted sewer then there will be an easement structure ,I think this is inevitable if it is a large estate of new build you are buying on

G_M

Mistral001 wrote: »

.... Also I suggest that you get them to put it in writing just to make sure that it is nothing to do with easements of sewers across the property (ie sewers supplying other properties).....

Pooo! Hope they are not "supplying other properties". Pity the owners there!

sorry. Couldn't resist...

jellie

How many manhole covers do your neighbours have each? Depending on the answer, they may all belong to you although 5 does seem excessive.

jeanat9

Thank you all for your replies,

I'll speak to my solicitor again today. Hopefully what he really meant is I should speak to the developer first before he takes further action. It's not what I understood.

We checked our pictures of the show home which are quite extensive and it only has one manhole in the garden. We couldn't see any in the house next to us on our last visit. Even though the developer said that they had one. Basically they thought we had 3 (not 5) and every other house has one.

poppysarah

We looked at a property with several in their garden. We decided not to buy partly because of them.
The advantage of buying a house after it's been built.