First time buyers, dream home turned nightmare!

Dave_Ham

I too cannot believe that figure can be correct, although I think your original solicitor is the first place to check.


Surely the seller must have known about this issue and it must be declarable.

Donury236

Whos land is the water course on? Surely that needs to be decided first. If your boundary is after the bank then surely whoevers land the watercourse is on needs to carry out the works?
Look at your title deeds, and as obviously streams etc can move...measure out from your house if it says your boundary is Xm in Y direction etc.

And by water course do you mean a stream or is this a man made gully? IF man made, then see if the council have any info on any prior works to it - oh and speak to the neighbours as well..

maninthestreet

Seems we need to wait for the OP to return and provide answers to our questions.

Foxy-Stoat_3

totalmess wrote: »

The watercourse runs the entire length of the garden which is around 160ft, and is about 15ft underground at points.

So you have a ditch/stream and its 15ft deep in places, and was this stream visible at the time of purchase?

Maybe your surveyor should of mentioned that this required further investigation.

RockOnZombies

Hi,

I work in a council that does deal with culverted watercourses like you describe and unfortunately what your council has told you is correct.

Any watercourse on private land is the responsibility of the Riparian Landowner and is owned by them, its called Riparian Responsibility. Have your council made any noises about serving notice on you to fix the problem? Under Land Drainage law all councils have the power to do it if they feel it necessary for any reason.

As for the cost of it, I'm afraid it doesn't sound that off the mark to be honest, I had a similar project for a smaller length of collapsed pipe that wasn't as deep as yours and that cost in the region of 80,000 although it was a very large pipe.

Have the council discussed what permissions you may need if you decide to try and rectify the problem? Under Land Drainage law you will need the council's prior written consent where what needs to be done will need to assessed and passed by them in writing.

As regards information on the watercourse, very often these things are not recorded and it's entirely down to local knowledge and more often than not no one knows the exact route of a w/c or what condition it's in until something bad happens.