Underground water leak. (Long story)

alfiemorris

Our daughter has moved into her new house just over two weeks ago. She had a full house survey carried out mainly at my request because it has a large side extension. This came back pretty much as we expected with no serious defects, just a couple of small items that can easily dealt with. We also recommended she takes out a Homecare plan regarding water, plumbing and so on. She did this within days of moving in. After she had moved in, she read the meters as one does and reported the results to Gas, Electric and Water authorities. A day or so later the Water people rang and said that the previous owners although they had a water meter installed back before 2015, they chose to revert back to an Annual Bill. SWW then suggested to our daughter that they, the previous owners must have used an awful lot of water, or they had a leak! After running the tests asked for by SWW, ie: Turning off the stop tap in the property for 12 hours, SWW confirmed they have a leak and it's between the main stop tap at the outside meter and the house stop tap. This means that it runs across an area laid to lawn area belonging to the house, some 6-7 meters or so, enters the house and then under the concrete slab of the foundations. Our daughter contacted her Solicitors that did the conveyancing but was told it was too late and they could do nothing to help her. The 14 day exclusion term is up tomorrow, Tuesday, and she will contact Homecare as suggested by SWW to report the leak.
We are all upset and worried by the implications of this leak as it's been calculated at approx' 1Cu mtr per two hours. SWW has told our daughter that this has been running since 2015 and the previous owners were probably unaware of it. SWW have frozen her bill until this has been resolved. The important questions are:
1/ Where has all this water gone/going?
2/ What damage has been done as a result of the leak?(Ground underminded)
3/ Who is going to have to pay for all the remedial work to repair the leak?
We will no doubt have some answers after tomorrow, but we need to know of her rights regarding the above questions. This problem that has come to light after buying the property in good faith and following professional guidelines. She is naturally very worried that this may fall to her in cost to have put right.
Any advices that can be given will be of great help and appreciated.

moneyistooshorttomention

The Water Authority saying "previous owners probably unaware of it" comes under heading = pull the other one as it's got bells on.

The WA is being very charitable there - as my instant thought was "That would explain why the previous owners swopped back from a water meter. They realised there was a leak and the water meter was costing them, but decided to swop back rather than resolve the problem".

I'm guessing the next move is to get someone suitable in to work out exactly where the leak is/what needs to be done to put it right. I would think a plumber is the correct person to have in for this and I'd be googling for local ones right now and explaining the situation to them on the phone (ie "I've got a leak/I want you round to tell me where it is please and how much you'll charge to put it right").

alumende27

http://southwestwater.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/41/

"We may offer a discretionary 'once only' contribution to the cost of repair if you provide a copy of the invoice for the work carried out."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11258592/Are-water-supply-pipe-repairs-free.html

Speak to your home insurance company about this, they may be able to offer some assistance, and if it really has been leaking water at that rate it may require further investigation to determine if foundations have been undermined.

I'd also speak to Citizen's Advice.

Good luck!

DaftyDuck

Money always thinks the worst of people... Always! There's no need to do likewise, and no point. They may have known, they more likely didn't. Move on without the festering rancour.

You need a WRAS approved contractor, and there will be a list on swwater website. If you use one of theirs, they'll contribute to the cost, or possibly pay it in the entirety. If it is close to the meter, they may take responsibility... They used to be more willing than they now are. Try calling and being as polite as possible, and see what help they'll give. Damage? Depends where the leak is, in the middle of the lawn, and likely none, or by the house wall.... Still likely none. It does rain rather a lot in this country...

The cost to repair the pipe will not be high. There may be a cost to remedial work if, say, the leak is under blockwork drives.

It's just one of the burdens of home ownership... But not too onerous a burden.

Grenage

I would have expected to see some dampness in the floor if there was a reasonable leak, but either way, you probably don't want to start digging up a solid floor without being reasonably sure if the problem lies there.

I'd dig down outside where the water enters the house, and follow it back across the garden.

Abandon any notion of offloading this problem onto anyone else, such as the previous owners. The house is not going to fall down, but leaks should not be ignored; I'd start digging.

glennevis

I had a leak repaired recently. The contractors sensibly started their inspection trench at the water meter which is in the front garden and found the leak within 0.5m of the meter which was due to a broken elbow joint. The pipe is blue plastic so leaks at joints are most likely. The whole job took less than 2 hours though there was no concrete to dig up, only soil.

By the way a big thumbs up to Yorkshire Water whose contractors repaired mine for free even though on my land.

The water soaked away so even though it leaked 119,000 cubic meters in 3 months there doesn't appear to be any damage to the foundations. It's not as if there is a river of water flowing past to undermine foundations.

Chanes

1Cu mtr per two hours could be drained by the land without causing trouble? I would guess if it has been doing that since 2015 it could be draining freely and doing do without undermining the property (if it was subsiding you would have cracks appearing) Get the leak traced and fix it I understand your worry but it could be a simple fix once found.

Don't dwell on the previous owners until the leak is fixed and then think it through.

firebird082

We had a very similar problem when we bought our place. An existing leak, which the previous owners hadn't bothered to address. We reported it to our WA, who 'kindly volunteered' to mend it, even though it was on our land, and therefore our responsibility. Problem solved. 2 years later, same problem. WA refused to do anything with it except send out some chaps to try and find where the leak was. After much chasing and refusing to accept responsibility, we finally got a chap with some common sense, who wrote the right paperwork to get the water authority contractors in to mend it. The moral if this story is that your daughter may need to extremely stubborn to get the WA to mend it, but it's worth persisting... they should have targets to reduce leakage, so I'm suprised they hadn't followed it up themselves already!

Is the grass particularly lush? Ours was fairly obvious, as you could hear water gurgling down beside the path once we'd dug out a little bit!

Hoploz

I'd say if you had a survey done recently then it probably hasn't done a lot of damage so that's reassuring at least.

G_M

* Blame the surveyor? No chance unless there were pools of water on the lawn which he missed

* blame the sellers? You'd have to prove a) that they knew and b) that they lied. Forget it.

* Blame the water company? The leak is (or seems to be) on your land. However many water compnies will fix a first leak themselves at their discretion. Might need to use their contractors so do not call out a plumber till you've exhausted this option

* claim off your Home Care insurance? Worth a try, though I suspect they'll say the problem pre-existed you taking out the policy so is not covered

* House buildings insurance? Often includes either investigation source of a leak and/or fixing, but.....I suspect they'll say the problem pre-existed you taking out the policy so is not covered

When you do get it fixed, if the pipes are old (lead?!) might be worth going the whole hog and replacing the entire pipe from meter to internal supply point with modern plastic pipe. New home: do a thorough job and then sleep in peace thereafter.

lika_86

This happened to my mum's house. Her water authority came out and said the problem was on her property (their point was on the pavement and it then ran under the house which is on a concrete raft), she claimed on her house insurance. I don't know who would have liability here but I would quickly get onto the sellers and check if their insurance is still in place (I'm not sure if this would help but it may stop them cancelling it whilst you find out if it could be claimed under that).

My mum's leak had been going on a while undetected and before the problem was felt through the floor (damp spot on the carpet). The insurance people sent someone round and they put a meter on the carpet through to the floor which detected that the concrete raft was "about as wet as it gets". We had an underground piping company come out and they rerouted the pipe using a new plastic one without having to jackhammer into the floor (my biggest fear). Once the leak was sorted my mum had to move out for a while while the carpets were taken up, the concrete dried out, all the door lintels removed etc and then everything replaced and a new carpet installed.

The repair of the pipe came to about £900, I have no idea what all the other work would have been as that was directly done by the insurer's contractors.

Hope you get it sorted.