Shared supply pipe leak - being issued with Section 75 notice

elsien

I stand to be corrected, but I wouldn’t expect a council to have the legal authority to issue the section 75 notice in order to complete the work themselves,

Or to have the impetus to do so when with all the hassle of trying to get money back from people, when there’s a perfectly good water company sitting there ready and waiting to do the work for them.

dank_2

Possibly a daft question, but when it comes to going down the Section 75 route, will they (or should they) give us an indication of how much it's likely to cost? Or is that left until after the repair?

elsien

We had the quote beforehand. But they knew what the problem was and that the whole lot needed replacing.

dank_2

The shared pipe only goes along the pavement in front of our four terraced houses, so I'm hoping it won't cost too much.

elsien

I’d probably be pushing them for evidence that the pipe is shared and isn’t their responsibility. Is there anything on your house deeds at all that indicates anything either way? I don’t think you should just be taking their word for it.

dank_2

I've asked them to prove where the leak is, but they refuse to do it. In their words: "if we send someone out and say it's in a place it's not, then you pay to get it fixed and it's not there, then we'll be in trouble."

Guessing my deeds are with my mortgage lender?

Given the situation, any recommendations on how to tackle this? Thanks for your help so far, by the way. Much appreciated.

elsien

If they make you pay for something that they subsequently find doesn't need doing then they have to reimburse you. Which may be why they are putting pressure on you to sort it instead but if it is a shared pipe I think I'd let them get on with it unless you have extremely co-operative neighbours. Although it may be worth asking the practicality and cost of coming off the shared supply and connecting directly - in my case it just wasn't doable.

This may be of help but does indicate that shared pipes can run under the highway.
Water pipe responsibility | My water pipes | Tap water | My Supply | Severn Trent Water (stwater.co.uk)

You can get copies of the deeds directly from the land registry for  but water searches should have been carried out anyway when you bought the property as one of the searches the conveyancers do. Do you still have the paperwork from that?
Get information about property and land: Get a copy of the deeds - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
PS please bear in mind that my own knowledge is only coming from my personal example and may not be relevant to other situations. I'd hate to find I was giving you duff information. 

dank_2

Bought the title plan and register online. The plan just has an outline of my property, which doesn't include the public footpath out the front where I believe the pipe is located.

I have the drainage and water searches, but it doesn't mention anything about supply/shared pipes. The map that's included only shows the main distribution pipes and nothing else.

And don't worry about giving me potentially wrong info. It's all helpful!

elsien

@Doozergirl is this something you know anything about, how OP can check whether the pipes are indeed shared? 

silvercar

Takes me back in time, I had this issue around 15 years ago. Housing association owned 2 of the properties and 2 were privately owned. The privately owned property on the end were able to get their own supply separate from the shared pipe due to the geography of the mains.

I was stuck between a housing association who did nothing material and a water board (affinity water) serving notice. In the end I gave up trying to do anything and let the water company deal with it. I remember being pleasantly surprised that the cost wasn’t so great. They must have contractors that work for them regularly. I think having HA properties involved meant that they needed to show they were costing reasonably. Ironically it turned out that the pipe was on the driveway of the house that had opted out of the shared pipe and it was much easier for the water board to gain their consent to dig up their drive than a neighbour.