Backyard shed built over pipes without planning perm.

Slinky

dirty_magic wrote: »

I think some water boards are more flexible than others with the retrospective agreements, so maybe your solicitor thinks they are likely to give one.

It's ridiculous really because these agreements only came in in 2011. Our extension was built way before then, but they can still demolish it if it wasn't built to building regulations at the time.

We built our extension in 2008 and were required to get a buildover agreement at that time. Fortunately we're not over the sewer, the corner of our footings are nearly against it at a 45 degree angle. They sent somebody to have a look at what we were doing before the footings were poured and later signed off the agreement. Took them about 8 months to send us a bill for it!

confusedFTB_3

Thank you all for the answers. Need to talk to the vendor this week and I'll update here. Seems risky to inherit the problem, but I see a huge delay potential if we push it via the solicitors and the proper channels. Very close to exchange, no other issues.

This might be useful to understand the position of Thames Water without actually going to them:
https://www.thameswater.co.uk/tw/common/downloads/your-business-developer-services/building-over-a-public-sewer.pdf

marksoton

Sam12341 wrote: »

May be a silly question but why was this not smart?
The solicitor said she was shocked that they went to the effort of moving the manhole but not the pipe.

Because you shouldn't just go working on an asset owned by the water company. It invalidates their records for a start.

Also there are specifications to be met as per...

http://sfa.wrcplc.co.uk/standards.aspx

I'll bet 99% of builders have never even heard of it....

martinsurrey

Can I just ask why everyone is jumping to conclusions that this is "building".

A shed base is just another form of landscaping, it doesn't require planning or building regs (in 99.9% of cases), and certainly isn't "building" (same as block paving your drive, who ever got a build over agreement for that!).

And putting a shed down, is also not building?

Mountains over mole hills.

marksoton

martinsurrey wrote: »

Can I just ask why everyone is jumping to conclusions that this is "building".

A shed base is just another form of landscaping, it doesn't require planning or building regs (in 99.9% of cases), and certainly isn't "building" (same as block paving your drive, who ever got a build over agreement for that!).

And putting a shed down, is also not building?

Mountains over mole hills.

Something i differentiated earlier in the thread.

But the fact remains, place any structure over a sewer and there is a risk element. No matter how small.