checking drain situation

Dan-Dan

the house with the rather crude dot is ours...


http://s7.postimg.org/yihds57yj/google.jpg

greenbee

If these drains all feed into mains drainage then they will be covered by the new legislation, which means that between 2011 and 2016 they will all need to be located.

If they feed into a private shared sewage treatment plant for the estate, then they won't be covered by the legislation but this information should be included in the conveyancing details as it is usually dealt with by covenants. Many estates have management companies set up specifically to deal with shared sewage treatment and unadopted access roads, and residents are billed for a share of the costs.

The searches may tell you more, depending on whether this area has been surveyed yet.

Dan-Dan

Thank you green bee , i appreciate your help , this all started with a request to my surveyor to be sure to lft inspection chambers , which look like they have never been lifted and indeed , one of them has concrete slabs partially covering it , and the other seems to be under a fence panel! so how would anyway clear a blockage in this instance?

greenbee

Sounds like you'd need to dig up a patio and take down a fence :-) obviously it hasn't been a problem so far.

Sounds better than the situation the house I'm buying is in ... Shared sewage treatment works with five other houses, managed by a building firm that ceased trading in 1999... No one seems to have any paperwork for it!

Dan-Dan

ha ha , best keep praying no one lobs the dreaded baby wipes down the toilet!

Furts

With a drain serving 45 properties this will be adopted under the law that changed late 2011.

Your surveyor would be correct that four or five years ago this could have been private.

I am surprised he does not appear to be aware of the current requirements. Is he a Chartered Building Surveyor or instead, perhaps, a surveyor dealing in property values, or commercial rents and leases, or basic homebuyers reports etc.?

Manholes on your ground are, to an extent, your responsibility. If they are private drainage then of course they are your responsibility. If they are adopted drainage, you have a responsibility not to cause a nuisance to the water authority by obstructing the manhole. For example covering the manhole with a patio or extension.

As you are asking questions, if you ever want to build an extension, think carefully about the new adopted drainage. It is unlikely you will be able to build over, or near, this.

Dan-Dan

Hi Furts

from his website :

mr blah and co are an established firm of Surveyors and Property Consultants offering a thoroughly professional, yet friendly and approachable service, when it comes to buying, selling and letting of retail, industrial and commercial property around no where town



he also does do homebuyers but this isnt advertised on the website , i only know about him because he surveyed our house in the 80`s and is very well known around town and we wanted someone local.

The thing is , i first started talking drains at all as i could see the inspection chambers at the property seemed to straddle the boundary to next door at the back , and at the front , one as i say seems to be under a fence , i think it might be accesible from next doors garden , and the one at the front looks half paved over!

Then the conversation moved on to the main drain itself that potentially runs all alonng the back of the houses (parallel with the railway line on the picture) he seems to think last he knew this wasnt adopted but i just cant see it , not now anyway

So my original worry was working out whatb was my responsibility on MY LAND and what wasnt , which means i need to see in the inspection chambers to see if i have a joined drain with the next door neighbour?

Furts

Hi Dan-Dan
It sounds like your surveyor is an up market estate agent, without a full technical knowledge.I hope this does not upset anyone!

I cannot comment in a definitive manner, for I have not seen the layout.

For your peace of mind lift the manhole covers both upstream and downstream, in both front and back gardens. Then flush toilets, with toilet paper, to see where it goes. Then put water down your rainwater pipes or gullies to see where this goes. Hopefully you can determine what is your exclusive drainage and what is shared (and thus adopted.)

AlexMac

When we last bought in 2011, one of the standard searches commissioned by our solicitor (routinely, without us telling her how to do her job) was an incredibly useful and accurate 22-page Water and Drainage search (from Thames Water as it happens). Dozens of narrative replies to questions and colour-coded maps show the exact locations and status of all mains, sewers and drains (public/ private, shared or sole-property). These detail not only what's below our house, built in the 1980's in the mews or big rear gardens of early 19th century properties on a main road , but also the services to adjacent streets and houses dating from the 1860's.

I find it hard to imagine that Angla water haven't got maps of more recent developments?

In a previous house, also built in the early 19th Century) I also remember having a bizarre conversation about responsibility for a blockage in a shared private drain (before these became the water Board's responsibility in 2011) with a kid in an Indian call centre whjo had a similr map up on her screen; as it was, the board's contactor turned out and it only cost us £70 to fix- shared between 6 falt-owners ion the mansion-block! So panic not!

Dan-Dan

Thanks Furts , if my surveyor cant get access for whatever reason , would you regard it as a deal breaker if i couldnt do those things before exhange ?

I think really , if the man holes are so hard to access and indeed one has slabs on it , then that must mean they dont get blocked drain problems very often ?

I have pictures of both inspection chambers on an email but frustratingly i cant put them on imageshack or anything otherwise i could post what they look like!