Homebuyers drainage survey didnt find blocked drain

KateBrown

I had a drainage survey done before I exchanged on the house in February.

I have now moved in and found that there is a blocked drain that was not surveyed (from the front gutter to the sewer), and its probably causing the damp problem in the front of my house and that next door.

I paid £198 for the survey. If I had known it was blocked i would have asked the vendor to unblock it or got £150 off the house price.

Unfortunately I have already paid for the survey.

What can I do now?

nLdn

Write to your surveyor and see what they say.

Mine missed a defect on both sides of an internal wall. I pointed it out to them and they accepted no responsibility but made a payment "without prejudice" to cover the cost of putting it right.

Id think your drain issue is more serious and a good surveyor wouldn't want to be thought of as missing this sort of stuff.

KateBrown

Thanks, it was a pretty school boy error on their part to be honest.

They have replied with:

We have carried out a full survey of the accessible drainage onsite. We did not investigate the gully’s as there were no access and as it was a pre purchase survey we don’t excavate anything as it’s not always agreed by property owner. If you require all the drainage that is not accessible to be dug up then we can do this at an extra cost. We will not be able to supply a refund but I am more than happy to send one of my engineers out to have a look for you

To which I replied:

Thank you very much for your prompt reply.

The drains from the gutter are accessible. There is a grate through which it can be inspected at the bottom of the gutter, and also from the reverse 2m away from the drain cover at the front of the house. It would have been easily possible to determine that the drain was blocked without any excavation work, similar to the rain water drains successfully inspected at the rear of the house.
Could you send someone to take a look later in the week please?

I hope its just a blockage and not something more serious, else I'll have to get into an argument with them about them paying for the damages as consequential losses.

Thanks!

Section106

KateBrown wrote: »

I had a drainage survey done before I exchanged on the house in February.

I have now moved in and found that there is a blocked drain that was not surveyed (from the front gutter to the sewer), and its probably causing the damp problem in the front of my house and that next door.

I paid £198 for the survey. If I had known it was blocked i would have asked the vendor to unblock it or got £150 off the house price.

Unfortunately I have already paid for the survey.

What can I do now?

Check the T&C's of the drainage survey. I would expect there to be a clause which says they will only survey what they can gain access to and cannot be held liable for things they don't find. Drains from gutters very often don't have manholes or other access points before they reach the sewer, or might be piped into a soakaway with no manholes anywhere.

How did you discover the blockage? Is there a pipe in a manhole which is easy to access? If so, what does the drainage report say about that manhole/pipe?

Was the damp problem on the house (and the neighbour's) picked up in the building survey? What did the surveyor suggest as follow-up action?

Was the drainage survey carried out because the building survey had identified a damp problem?

Where does the £150 figure come from?

KateBrown

I saw the drain was blocked when it rained and it overflowed. I stuck my hand down there and pulled out lots of organic black goop.

I think it joins to a manhole at the front of the house 2m away. Its victorian so sewers and runoff are shared.

Their report included the words:

We have attended site and carried out a survey of the drainage system and can confirm that all drainage is in good working order at this time.

Which is probably a bit unfortunate for them, as they have included the full scope of drains rather than a limited set. It's not unreasonable to expect them to stick their cctv camera down the gutter grate to check it out. It wasn't expressly excluded anywhere.

I'd been quoted £150 to get the drain unblocked, although to be honest it might be more if the cause of the blockage is something nasty.

My building surveyor had an obsession with tanking rooms rather than investigating the cause of the damp. Also, he just used a damp meter to assess damp which isn't appropriate for non timber materials. It wasn't clear there was a problem with the drain before it rained.

The drainage survey was carried about because the drains run from back to front and can be expensive to fix if there's an issue. Also, the home info pack said they'd had an insurance claim on the drain

a.turner

Maybe it wasn't blocked at the time of the survey.

Section106

KateBrown wrote: »

I saw the drain was blocked when it rained and it overflowed. I stuck my hand down there and pulled out lots of organic black goop.

That sounds like a blocked gully trap. You need to check the T&C's of the survey to see whether these were included in what you paid for. Some companies will exclude them and only report on pipes and manholes.

I think it joins to a manhole at the front of the house 2m away. Its victorian so sewers and runoff are shared.

If there is a pipe from the gully to the manhole then the survey should comment on the pipe entering the manhole and should include a condition survey of the pipe (from the manhole end). Typically they will go as far as the downstream end of the trap as the CCTV camera won't go any further and cannot see anything under water. (hence it being common to exclude the gully itself from the survey)

Their report included the words:

We have attended site and carried out a survey of the drainage system and can confirm that all drainage is in good working order at this time.

Which is probably a bit unfortunate for them, as they have included the full scope of drains rather than a limited set.

The important words being "at this time". Would you be able to prove the gully was blocked at the time the survey was carried out?

As for what is included in the scope of the survey, the T&C's will define any excluded parts.

It's not unreasonable to expect them to stick their cctv camera down the gutter grate to check it out. It wasn't expressly excluded anywhere.

If the gully has a trap then they cannot put the camera down it.

The exclusion might not be express, it might be implied. Hence the exact wording of the T&C's is important.

I'd been quoted £150 to get the drain unblocked, although to be honest it might be more if the cause of the blockage is something nasty.

£150 sounds a lot to put on a pair of rubber gloves and clear some organic material from a gully trap, but unfortunately drainage companies do have a habit of charging unreasonable amounts of money for simple jobs.

My building surveyor had an obsession with tanking rooms rather than investigating the cause of the damp. Also, he just used a damp meter to assess damp which isn't appropriate for non timber materials. It wasn't clear there was a problem with the drain before it rained.

If the building surveyor didn't comment on the gully being blocked as a possible cause of the damp then you might have difficulties in claiming damages and consequential losses from the drainage survey company. A good surveyor who noted a damp problem in close proximity to a drain should have at least had a look at the gully, and preferably tried pouring some water down it to see if it was flowing freely. Or else advise that a drainage survey was required to establish whether the drains were defective in that specific area.

But a blocked gully on its own shouldn't be causing a damp problem. If the gully overflows it is hardly different to rain running off across the surface of the ground. For there to be a damp problem it is almost always necessary for there to also be an issue with the damp proofing of the wall to be missing or ineffective.

If the gutter downpipe itself was blocked then that might cause damp issues if it resulted in water overflowing at a higher level and running down the wall. But an open gully with a grate should allow water to overflow below dpm level and therefore not cause a problem unless the dpm is defective.

On the plus side, you might be lucky and the drainage company will clear the blockage free of charge. But you might want to establish that is the case before they arrive as the phrase "I am more than happy to send one of my engineers out to have a look for you" does not preclude the possibility they will bill you for the visit.

JimmyChanga

You can buy some rods and plunger for less than £20 and try and unblock it yourself. Most blockages are simple to clear. That's been my experience anyway. It's only when tree roots are involved that they can be a hassle.

KateBrown

Nothing in their T&Cs - in fact they didn't send any out and what's on their paperwork isn't relevant to surveys. Hopefully this can all be sorted pretty quickly.

They can't bill me for a visit without me agreeing to be billed in advance. We don't have a contract for that.

Section106

KateBrown wrote: »

Nothing in their T&Cs - in fact they didn't send any out and what's on their paperwork isn't relevant to surveys. Hopefully this can all be sorted pretty quickly.

Nothing at all that says something to the effect that all work is carried out in accordance with their published/standard terms and conditions?

If so, that's worrying. If you haven't reviewed and agreed the T&C's then the report itself may not be worth the paper it is written on.

They can't bill me for a visit without me agreeing to be billed in advance. We don't have a contract for that.

They have offered to provide a service "I am more than happy to send one of my engineers out to have a look for you" and you have accepted the offer "Could you send someone to take a look later in the week please?" .....just saying.

KateBrown

The agreement didn't include consideration so it isn't a legally enforceable contract.

I have a statutory right for them to complete the work with adequate competence and not to be negligent, therefore it doesn't really matter if there are T&Cs attached. There are some easily quantifiable and obvious damages from the point our original contract was made - I was buying a house so the results of the survey would definitely affect its market value.