Third party access to drain on property

glasgowdan

Our solicitor has just flagged up that a drain runs across the front of the property we're buying, with legal rights for a third party to access for cleaning/repair under an obligation on them to return the surface to as near original state as practicable.

Has anyone got a property with this issue, or know anything that we might not be thinking about?

cannyshopper_2

Don't know if Scotland is different.

I have surface water drainage from 2 adjacent properties running through my garden. From there it goes through several other gardens till it joins the main sewer at the bottom of the road.

The local Water Board is responsible for the shared part of the drainage system. They are obviously allowed to access to it.

In practice I can only remember this happening once, a couple of years ago. They used the inspection chamber to run a camera along the drain. They were looking for a blockage as a neighbour further down the road had reported poor drainage & bad smells. Fortunately they did not need to dig anything up.

One of my neighbours has built his conservatory over the drain so I hope they never need to access the drains on his property!

G_M

My water mains, and drains, both run across my neighbour's land (and the drains end up in his septic tank). Never been a problem, but to facilitate any future sale I recently put a covenant in place on both our deeds similar to what you describe.

He was fine with this and just saw it as common sense.

What exactly are you worried about?

glasgowdan

Cheers. Worried that if I spend money on a new driveway, one day the owner of the drain might need to replace it and not carry out sufficient remedial works afterwards.

Either that, or a blockage causing overflow onto my property and the owner not bothering to deal with it.

I don't think I'm genuinely worried as such, just want to make sure I have my back covered before we exchange.

cannyshopper_2

is the property connected to mains water/sewerage or is it a private supply?

glasgowdan

It's mains

molerat

I think the only problem is putting a tarmac, concrete or imprinted concrete driveway over it because if they have to dig it up then it will never go back the same and you would have no right to the whole drive being re-done to match. Block paving or gravel would be the only type likely to be put back relatively un-noticed.