Help! Buying House and Public Sewer issue

Boss_Level

Hi, please can you guys help on what options I may have?

I am in the process of buying a property. The issue is that the vendors over the years, 80's to mid 00's, have extended to the back and side of the property.

There is a public sewer that serves 8 properties with ours being the last one before the sewer diverts into the main one that runs under the road.

The sewer ran just behind the property and then turns to run under the house out to the road. There was a manhole access at the turn in the garden (which is the last one of three across the eight properties before the main road).

The extensions however have built over the sewer drains behind the house, the manhole has been covered over and built on and the has had a 2 story extension added to it next to where the pipes run under the house. This essentially means all but the pipes up to the middle of the house from the road have been built over.

The vendors have said they have planning permission and building regs, which our solicitor is trying to check. However, we know no build over agreement is in place with the water board for any extensions (extensions are pre-2011 whether that effects anything in terms of adopted sewers).

I'm not sure of what legal options would be open to us? We don't really want to walk as it is a very nice house and want to explore the options before running at the first sign of issue. I don't want to be walking into a legal trap where the water board could knock half the house down if there is a block or worse case the sewer collapsed in the future. If we had to meet the costs we would most likely go bankrupt and knocking half the house down then rebuilding it.

Comments welcome!

Cheers!

G_M

Either buy, and keep your fingers crossed for then ext X years, or walk away.

An indemnity insurance policy might cover any costs in the event of a problem, but if the extension needed knocking down the policy would not stop this.

teneighty

The main issue will be if the drain was an "adopted" sewer at the time the extensions were built. Probably not if it only serves 8 houses in your road and certainly not if the local council Building Control Dept. was involved as they would have checked and stopped it.


Secondly you need to check that when the extensions were built reasonable steps were taken to protect the drain and the foundations taken down deep enough to avoid the drain. Easiest way to do this is look at the Building Control Officers inspection records. These are held at the local council and are accessible to the public on request.

eddddy

Boss_Level wrote: »

....
I don't want to be walking into a legal trap where the water board could knock half the house down if there is a block or worse case the sewer collapsed in the future. If we had to meet the costs we would most likely go bankrupt and knocking half the house down then rebuilding it.
....

If the sewer did collapse under the house, I think the first thing the water board would look at would be re-laying that part of the sewer over a different route (not under a building).

Is there room to re-lay the sewer somewhere else? If so, you could get an estimate of the cost. If, for example, the cost was £10k you could look at renegotiating the purchase price to take account of a possible £10k (plus inflation) cost in the future.

ihatemyhouse

did building control ok the entension, if they did then you shouldn't have any problems, as they should be aware of the sewage drain, as they prob come across this before

Boss_Level

Thanks for your responses.

As an update, it now looks like the vendors do have planning permission, building regs and building over agreements.

My question now is... Assuming this legal paperwork is there... What would happen if the drains blocked, or worse case the sewer pipes collapsed? Would the water company still ask us to knock down the extensions and possible half the house at our expense to get access go the pipes? Or would they meet the cost? Or would they redirect the sewer?

Cheers guys, help much appreciated!

sonastin

Redirection is going to be considerably less expensive than compensating you for the damage they may have to do to your property to fix the problem underneath your extension. You might have to give them permission to re-route across your garden though. The build-over agreement might include details of what was agreed - ask your solicitor to check.

mgarl10024

Boss_Level wrote: »

My question now is... Assuming this legal paperwork is there... What would happen if the drains blocked, or worse case the sewer pipes collapsed? Would the water company still ask us to knock down the extensions and possible half the house at our expense to get access go the pipes? Or would they meet the cost? Or would they redirect the sewer?

We've recently bought a house, and the sewer for four properties runs underneath our garage out to the main road. For us, there is no chance of redirection as there is no room.

I spoke to Wessex Water (who do the sewers in our area) and they said that we could apply for permission to extend and they would need to survey, approve and check.

As to your question, they told me that they would always retain the right to access their pipe when needed. This means that should they need to get to it, they will be digging through the extension floor to get access. However, it would be at their cost to make good the damage they caused.
I asked them how likely this was and the lady said that given the cost of repairing the damage to the extension that they 'were not in the business of digging through peoples' homes' and that they were 'actually quite good at unblocking and even repairing pipes that are deep underneath a building'.
I asked whether this would ever mean demolition of the extension and was told that this was very unlikely, with her citing that they have many much larger sewer pipes running beneath office tower blocks and that it is just not feasible to go demolishing them every time.

I've not had to put this to the test however. But the take-away message I got was that if you have followed the correct procedure for all the surveys, inspections, etc. (and it sounds like your sellers have) then it will be at their cost.

Worth chatting to your sewer company to confirm this.

weeg

It is a vanishingly rare circumstance that would lead to a building floor being dug up to get at a drain. As the poster above says, engineers can generally get around these things.

It seems to me that you're confusing your mountains and molehills.