Shared supply pipe leak - being issued with Section 75 notice

dank_2

I'm a bit stressed about an ongoing issue with Thames Water, so any tips or advice would be much appreciated.

At the start of November, my neighbours and I (four houses in total) received a booklet from Thames Water telling us there's a leak and we need to fix it. No other info. After much chasing, they sent a contractor out a couple of weeks ago, who dug a hole near the stop tap for the shared water pipe and they couldn't find anything. Similarly, they were unable to tell us where this leak actually is.

I now have this contractor and Thames Water harassing me to get this leak fixed. My understanding is, if there's a leak on a shared pipe then it's down to all four of us to get it fixed. My neighbours don't exactly care and I'm reluctant to fix it myself, either privately or through my insurance. So today, Thames Water suggested they would send all four households a Section 75 notice as part of the Water Act of 1991. Basically, this will state they (Thames Water) will investigate and repair the leak, then split the costs between the four of us.

Has anyone had this happen to them before? My main worry is that Thames Water will charge us more than it would do if I just paid my insurance excess (£600). If anyone has been in a similar situation, I'd love to hear how you dealt with it with minimal fuss. Thanks.

Brie

Have your bills gone up drastically to show that the leak is on your side of the meter?  Or are you all without meters?  As I understand it if it's not on your side of the meter then it's up to TW to fix the problem. And pay for it.

Brie

And actually why would your insurance company pay for something that might not be your sole problem?  They will ask the same questions about where the leak is.  And if someone investigating can't find anything how can anyone be expected to fix something?

elsien

I had this scenario and the water company quote was higher than finding an approved contractor to do it privately. However the difficulty was that a) only one of my neighbours was prepared to pay properly; one wanted to get one of his mates to do it and the other just said “too expensive” to the cheapest proper quote
and b) the private contractors didn’t want to deal with four separate households and the hassle of chasing up the money so they either wouldn’t quote, or wanted one person to agree to be liable for this full sum and then that person try and get the remainder  from the other houses. Which was never going to happen.

We got lucky in that the water company didn’t know it’s !!!!!! from its elbow and while we were debating with one branch about the cost someone else came out  and repaired it free of charge.

Otherwise the more expensive water company S75 would  have been the only realistic way to go. With another more reasonable set of neighbours it may be different. 

This was a few years ago now and the water company wanted £1800 each back then with the lowest reputable quote I could find being about £1200 each.

dank_2

I religiously check our water meter and it hasn't gone up. I've carried out checks to see if it's on the supply pipe to our property. The meter doesn't tick over when we turn the stopcock off in the house. There's no indication of any leaks internally either (I've checked just about everything!)

Thames Water say it's our responsibility to get the shared pipe fixed. I can understand the supply pipe, as that's within my property boundary, but the shared one... Thames Water do mention it on their site in this document here (page 4) https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-library/home/about-us/governance/our-policies/codes-of-practice/your-water-and-wastewater-services.pdf

 "If you share a water supply pipe with your neighbours, then you and your neighbours are jointly responsible for it."

dank_2

elsien said:

I had this scenario and the water company quote was higher than finding an approved contractor to do it privately. However the difficulty was that a) only one of my neighbours was prepared to pay properly; one wanted to get one of his mates to do it and the other just said “too expensive” to the cheapest proper quote
and b) the private contractors didn’t want to deal with four separate households and the hassle of chasing up the money so they either wouldn’t quote, or wanted one person to agree to be liable for this full sum and then that person try and get the reminder from the other houses. Which was never going to happen.

We got lucky in that the water company didn’t know it’s !!!!!! from its elbow and while we were debating with one branch about the cost someone else came out  and repaired it free of charge.

Otherwise the more expensive water company S75 would  have been the only realistic way to go. With another more reasonable set of neighbours it may be different. 

This was a few years ago now and the water company wanted £1800 each back then with the lowest reputable quote I could find being about £1200 each.

Wowzers. £1800 from all four of you? So £7,200 in total?!!

elsien

Brie said:

Have your bills gone up drastically to show that the leak is on your side of the meter?  Or are you all without meters?  As I understand it if it's not on your side of the meter then it's up to TW to fix the problem. And pay for it.

Not everyone has a meter. And shared pipes are likely to be between the house which is clearly the householder responsibility and the main where the water company responsibility starts. So after the meter where there is one. 

Our shared  pipe runs down the private alleyway at the back of the four terraced houses and then down the side of the endhouse to join the main. The water company has no responsibility for that bit at all, it is down to the householders. There used to be some guidance about water companies doing one repair free but I’m not sure if that still applies.

elsien

dank_2 said:

elsien said:

I had this scenario and the water company quote was higher than finding an approved contractor to do it privately. However the difficulty was that a) only one of my neighbours was prepared to pay properly; one wanted to get one of his mates to do it and the other just said “too expensive” to the cheapest proper quote
and b) the private contractors didn’t want to deal with four separate households and the hassle of chasing up the money so they either wouldn’t quote, or wanted one person to agree to be liable for this full sum and then that person try and get the reminder from the other houses. Which was never going to happen.

We got lucky in that the water company didn’t know it’s !!!!!! from its elbow and while we were debating with one branch about the cost someone else came out  and repaired it free of charge.

Otherwise the more expensive water company S75 would  have been the only realistic way to go. With another more reasonable set of neighbours it may be different. 

This was a few years ago now and the water company wanted £1800 each back then with the lowest reputable quote I could find being about £1200 each.

Wowzers. £1800 from all four of you? So £7,200 in total?!!

Yep. I think it was more expensive because they had actually come out and repaired it for us a couple of times and the pipes kept springing new leaks. So they ended up having to replace all the pipework from the main, along the side of the house,  along the back alley and then into each of our back yards to join the house supply.  If your pipework is generally okay and they can fix the leak without having to do anything else obviously it would be a lot cheaper.

You can see why the private contractors didn’t want to touch it with a barge pole though, four houses two of which were tenanted and reluctant payees.

In their place I wouldn’t have done it either.

ETA - Poor phrasing. Obviously the tenants aren’t liable it would be the landlord but just having a tenanted property seem to make the contractors even more wary because it’s just another layer of difficulty to go through.

dank_2

elsien said:

dank_2 said:

elsien said:

I had this scenario and the water company quote was higher than finding an approved contractor to do it privately. However the difficulty was that a) only one of my neighbours was prepared to pay properly; one wanted to get one of his mates to do it and the other just said “too expensive” to the cheapest proper quote
and b) the private contractors didn’t want to deal with four separate households and the hassle of chasing up the money so they either wouldn’t quote, or wanted one person to agree to be liable for this full sum and then that person try and get the reminder from the other houses. Which was never going to happen.

We got lucky in that the water company didn’t know it’s !!!!!! from its elbow and while we were debating with one branch about the cost someone else came out  and repaired it free of charge.

Otherwise the more expensive water company S75 would  have been the only realistic way to go. With another more reasonable set of neighbours it may be different. 

This was a few years ago now and the water company wanted £1800 each back then with the lowest reputable quote I could find being about £1200 each.

Wowzers. £1800 from all four of you? So £7,200 in total?!!

Yep. I think it was more expensive because they had actually come out and repaired it for us a couple of times and the pipes kept springing new leaks. So they ended up having to replace all the pipework from the main, along the side of the house,  along the back alley and then into each of our back yards to join the house supply.  If your pipework is generally okay and they can fix the leak without having to do anything else obviously it would be a lot cheaper.

You can see why the private contractors didn’t want to touch it with a barge pole though, four houses two of which were tenanted and reluctant payees.

In their place I wouldn’t have done it either.

Yep, I can see why. It's a complicated, convoluted mess. Out of the four of us, one neighbour is a council tenant, so that adds another level of complexity.

I am obviously keen to get this resolved as soon as possible, but at the same time, I'm hardly flush with cash at the moment. Dunno whether to bite the bullet and just pay the £600 excess it'll cost on my insurance, or see what happens when this section 75 letter arrives. Either way, I'm going to be out of pocket.

elsien

I think you need to check your insurance to see whether it would be covered. Because disrepair due to wear and tear generally isn’t, and the specific water pipe/sewage insurance tends not to cover shared pipes, or at least it didn’t when I was looking into it.

It’s looking likely that the water company will have to go the section 75 route anyway to get agreement from everyone. Even if your insurance covers leaks it’s only going to cover your share and not everyone else’s so at that point if you are covered you could just hand the bill over to them if it’s markedly higher than the excess, which it may not be. My repair was probably more expensive than many.

Brie

dank_2 said:

elsien said:

and b) the private contractors didn’t want to deal with four separate households and the hassle of chasing up the money so they either wouldn’t quote, or wanted one person to agree to be liable for this full sum and then that person try and get the reminder from the other houses. Which was never going to happen.

You can see why the private contractors didn’t want to touch it with a barge pole though, four houses two of which were tenanted and reluctant payees.  In their place I wouldn’t have done it either.

Yep, I can see why. It's a complicated, convoluted mess. Out of the four of us, one neighbour is a council tenant, so that adds another level of complexity.

I am obviously keen to get this resolved as soon as possible, but at the same time, I'm hardly flush with cash at the moment. Dunno whether to bite the bullet and just pay the £600 excess it'll cost on my insurance, or see what happens when this section 75 letter arrives. Either way, I'm going to be out of pocket.

So this is precisely the problem then.  You get your insurance company to deal with it (assuming they will at all under the rules of the policy) and say it costs £4k.  4 properties so the insurance company says well in that case they are only covering your portion of £1k for which you have to pay the first £600 excess.  The insurance company then might say because it's not their problem you need to compensate them for the other 3 properties' share for £3k.  Or your insurance company tells you to go ahead and get it sorted and splits the bill 4 ways, deducts the £600 excess from your portion and pays you £400 total leaving you to chase the others for the other £3k you have paid to the contractor.  You already know they are a problem so this could be a very big hole in your pocket.  

Maybe the solution is to get the council tenant to get the council on to it all.  After all as a tenant they aren't responsible for material repairs I believe and so the council will need to be dealing with the issue.  The council might go ahead and fix it all themselves and then charge you other 3 properties your share of the costs.  At which point you can try to submit a bill to your insurance company to recoup the portion beyond your excess.