Shared Septic tank which isn't shared

circlemaker

Hi All, I have a bit of a strange situation I am hoping someone can help me with. We purchased a house 8 years ago and the deeds show the property having a shared septec tank (located on neighbours land). Recently our downstairs toilet stoped draining away so we got the pipes jetted and a camera stuck in. It revealed the septic tank pipe has ben blocked off. The house waste runs into the garden (I have been told illeagally) and is no longer draining away. Where do I stand legally with paying 50% of the septic tank clearances for the last 8 years to my neighbour and reconnecting to it. In addition the deeds were obviously not correct and the person who redirected the waste appears to have acted illegally. Can I claim on insurance and do I have any opportunity to make someone else pay for the work which will now need to be done? And can I force my neighbour to pay back the £600 odd I have paid to them?

tigertrio

Are you close to a mains water waste pipe - by law you'd have to connect to that and not connect to the neighbours tank.

ProDave

Well obviously the pipe has not been blocked for the last 8 years, so did you see any work taking place on next doors land when it mysteriously became disconnected.

If you have a right to connect to the shared tank why don't you send contractors to re connect?

Sp other things in the house still work?  Are you sure it is not just a collapsed section of drain from just that one toilet?

propertyrental

 the deeds show the property having a shared septec tank (located on neighbours land).

What exactly do the deeds say?

In my own (similar) case I have a right to use the neighbour's (treatment plant which replaced a septic tank) and an obligation to pay half the costs of maintenance and /or replacement.

I also have a right to enter onto my neighbour's land in an emergency to undertake repairs/maintenence.

I too doubt this situation has been ongoing for 8 years. Has the neighbour not noticed his land getting flooded by sewage? Is the eighbour not as keen (or keener!) as you to remedy the situation?

What did you pay the £600 to the neighbour for?

Insurance: if the pipe collapsed, or was damaged/broken by eg tree roots, you (or more likely your neighbour) may be able to claim. If it was deliberately blocked off, any claim will fail!

You and your neighbour need to remedy the situation asap, at joint cost. I'd suggest looking at a modern Treatment plant unless the septic tank 
a) is in good condition
b) can be easily re-connected to and 
c) has a legal outflow eg to a proper drainage field

This assumes, of course, that there is no public foul drainage nearby that you can (should) connect to.

youth_leader

Have you got a shared inspection drain you can look at? When our toilet backed up it was normally my neighbour yet again using shed loads of 'recycled quilted toilet paper' blocking the drain.  

circlemaker

OK: 
tigertrio -no we are not near to a mains water waste pipe, all the houses in the road have septic tanks of which the run off water runs into a drainage pipe out the front of all the houses. 
Prodave - next door has had no work done, the blockage is under the floor in our kitchen, the previous owner extended the house and build upon the pipe around 15 years ago (which is presumably when they made the decision to take the waste water away from the house into the garden and place a brick in the pipe before they put the foundation of the house on it). The drain guys are going to have to reconnect to the septic tank by diverting the waste water away from where it is currently soaking into the ground and place a resevoir and dig in a new pipe to take towards the septic tank on my neighbours land - at a cost of several thousand. All the other waste water is going to the same place, it is not simply the toilet which is experiencing the issue. For the record both sides of the blockage have been camera'd to reveal all the water from every appliance is exiting to the soak away.
propertyrental - the £600 was paid as my half of the septic tank being cleared, as it was assumed by everyone that as we share the septic tank we both pay half when it needs to be cleared. They have no problems with anything their side so the problem is isolated to me. They have lived at the address for 40 years and always shared the clearance fee (as it was once draining to them). The pipe has been deliberately blocked by in my opinion whoever built the extension - then illegally run off to the garden - in that respect someone is at fault either for completing that work or making an incorrect declaration on the deeds of the house. I assume by what you are saying insurance is a no go but we may be able to prosecute somone? 

circlemaker

propertrental - i'll check exactly what the deeds say I have a feeling they could be pivotal in where this goes.

ProDave

So the builders that built the extension messed up.  I am just astonished it "worked" for 8 years before it blocked, which makes it more likely the drain has only just collapsed.

Unless your house insurance covers it, I am afraid you have to pay to fix it.

The fee was probably ongoing maintenance and a pump out of the tank, they would have no way to know your connection was faulty and not actually reaching the tank.

Grumpy_chap

circlemaker said:

OK: 
tigertrio -no we are not near to a mains water waste pipe, all the houses in the road have septic tanks of which the run off water runs into a drainage pipe out the front of all the houses. 
Prodave - next door has had no work done, the blockage is under the floor in our kitchen, the previous owner extended the house and build upon the pipe around 15 years ago (which is presumably when they made the decision to take the waste water away from the house into the garden and place a brick in the pipe before they put the foundation of the house on it). The drain guys are going to have to reconnect to the septic tank by diverting the waste water away from where it is currently soaking into the ground and place a resevoir and dig in a new pipe to take towards the septic tank on my neighbours land - at a cost of several thousand. All the other waste water is going to the same place, it is not simply the toilet which is experiencing the issue. For the record both sides of the blockage have been camera'd to reveal all the water from every appliance is exiting to the soak away.
propertyrental - the £600 was paid as my half of the septic tank being cleared, as it was assumed by everyone that as we share the septic tank we both pay half when it needs to be cleared. They have no problems with anything their side so the problem is isolated to me. They have lived at the address for 40 years and always shared the clearance fee (as it was once draining to them). The pipe has been deliberately blocked by in my opinion whoever built the extension - then illegally run off to the garden - in that respect someone is at fault either for completing that work or making an incorrect declaration on the deeds of the house. I assume by what you are saying insurance is a no go but we may be able to prosecute somone? 

All the waste water from your house has gone to some unofficial soakaway for the past 8 years?  (Potentially 15 years since the extension was built.)  Is this discharge point on your land? 
There must be a lot of solid matter somewhere, and I am surprised no-one ever noticed any odour...

Are the neighbours with the septic tank, who think you were discharging to the shared septic tank, willing for you to connect to the tank again?
I would not bother trying to ask for the £600 paid over the years to be refunded - you really want to keep the neighbours on side and this £600 is loose change compared to the increased costs you will face if they do not allow you to connect to the shared septic tank.
FWIW - £600 over 8 years is also a lot less than paying for sewage charges in that time.

That is your solution from a technical perspective.  It does depend upon the septic tank condition and suitable liquor discharge point.
I think you will have to meet the costs of the re-connection from your own means.

I know that is not what you want to hear, but I cannot see any realistic prospect of recovering the costs from any third party:

• all you have is that someone, unknown, at least 8 years and potentially 15 years ago (or longer) made an alteration to the waste pipe work, the exact details of the alteration are also unknown.  You can't claim from "unknown".
• the property Surveyor when you purchased the house would not have gone to this level of investigation, so no grounds there.
• the Solicitor will have relied upon the information from the Surveyor.
• your insurance will dismiss it as being "as is" prior to your first having any cover in place.
• that might, potentially, leave the former owners, assuming you know how to contact them, but they will either deny, claim it was a change after they sold the property, or whatever other than reach for the cheque book.

As for prosecute someone, the authorities will not take any action.  If you do alert the authorities, the risk is that they take enforcement action against you for non-compliance and on-going pollution (as you are now aware the waste is not being appropriately managed).

This is a bad situation, I totally feel for you and your anger, but you need to just accept it as it is and seek the resolution with least impact.
Good luck.

housebuyer143

Personally I think you can try with your insurance from a blocked or collapsed pipe perspective and see what happens. 
I claimed for a drain that had been sealed by the old owners and the floor needed to be dug up and a new manhole laid and it was all covered even though I told them it was like that when I bought it. 

propertyrental

Ah! So the neighbours have no responsibility for the blockage. It was caused by a previous owner of your property yes?

You can ask the neighbours to refund your share of the septic tank emptying (£600) but if they refuse I don't think it's worth falling out with the neighbours eg by taking legal action, which might or might not (probably won't) succeed. You will need a decent ongoing relationship since you share the tank. And anyway, if you are going to re-connect to the tank, then having had it pumped out will benefit you anyway.

Insurance: you could try claiming on the grounds of 'collapsed drain', but assuming the insurer investigates I suspect they'll decline. And that would goon your insurance history. Indeed, just telling them about it, even if you don't actually claim, will be recorded and could affect future premiums.......

Or you could claim back the cost of the CCTV work, as many policies include cover for 'investigating underground pipes' - though I suspect you should have claimed before getting the contractors in. The insurer would have sent their own contractors.

Liability/responsibility seems to lie with either the previous owners who had the extension built, or their contractors, depending whether the owners knew /approved of or not what the contractors were doing with the pipe. Again, you could try claiming from one or other, but I suspect the 'buyer beware' rule will apply.

You bought the house as is. You had a choice to get a survey done. To have an electrician report on the electrics. And/or a gas inspection (if you have gas). And you could have had a drainage/septic tank survey done eg
https://www.ukdpsolutions.co.uk/septic-tanks/surveys/home-buyer-drainage-survey
but I'm guessing you didn't.....? Your choice.....

The owner will deny knowledge and hence responsibility. The contractors (if you can identify them) will say they have no contractual relationship with you and so no responsibility to you.

I suppose the EA might prosecute the contractor, but a) that won't help you and b) I doubt they will anyway.

The drain guys are going to have to reconnect to the septic tank by diverting the waste water away from where it is currently soaking into the ground and place a resevoir and dig in a new pipe to take towards the septic tank on my neighbours land - at a cost of several thousand.

At that cost, I'd look into getting a treatment plant. They cost £2000+ though installation costs and drains will add to the cost. But maybe the neighbours would go halves, especially in light of my question/comment below........

all the houses in the road have septic tanks of which the run off water runs into a drainage pipe out the front of all the houses. 

Unrelated to your current problem, but that sounds pretty dodgy and possibly illegal too. Where does the communal drainage pipe in front of the houses go? 

Unless it leads to an Environmental Agency approved drainage field, or a sewage treatment plant which seems unlikely, it will not comply. And if it does lead to a sewage treatment plant, who owns that? The water company? In that case, it's basically mains sewage!!!

But if it leads to a watercourse eg stream, river, pond etc then it would only comply if the outflow from all the properties was clean, treated water ie from private treatment plants.

Outflow from septic tanks is not clean, and cannot legally go to a watercourse......