Public sewer under extension

Emily_Joy

The title reads:

Entry date 1978: ...except and reserved unto the owners and occupiers for the time being of the adjoining property on the Northern and Western sides the right to connect with and use the sewer under the Property indicated by a broken line upon the said plan subject to the payment by them of a proportionate part of the expense of repairing and maintaining the same and also except and reserved unto the Owners and Occupiers for the time being of the adjoining property on the Southern side the right to use the sewer under the Property which connects with the sewer herein before referred to Subject to the payment by them of a proportionate part of the expense of repairing and maintaining the same.

Entry date 1999: An Agreement made between (1) District Council (2) Water supplier (3) Owner (4) Mortgage provider contains provisions and restrictions relating to the erection of a building over the public sewer.

At the moment over the sewer there are a garage currently used as a storage/utility room and a part of the kitchen.

The plan shows the sewer going on the western side of the house (the street goes South-North and the house is on the Eastern side, with a huge garden to the East).

Is there anything to be concerned about?

johnhenstock

It’s not a sewer, but a drain. I suspect there’s a sewer nearby or a direct, straight line connection into a main sewer in the street.

The presence of a drain under a property needn’t be an issue, especially since you have documents “approving” it, but it poses theoretical (what if?) risks, should anything go wrong.

My first action would be to establish who owns the drain, because if it’s private, you don’t have much to worry about.

Section62

johnhenstock said:

It’s not a sewer, but a drain. I suspect there’s a sewer nearby or a direct, straight line connection into a main sewer in the street.

The presence of a drain under a property needn’t be an issue, especially since you have documents “approving” it, but it poses theoretical (what if?) risks, should anything go wrong.

My first action would be to establish who owns the drain, because if it’s private, you don’t have much to worry about.

From the information the OP provided it will be a sewer, not a drain.

OP, you need to see a copy of the buildover agreement from 1999 to make sure there are no conditions you couldn't accept and/or that the completed building is consistent with the agreement.... i.e. what they built was what they said they were going to build.

lika_86

Is there access within your property to said sewer? I once rented a house that had built over a sewage pipe and there was access through the floor in the kitchen. Unfortunately at one point it got blocked which meant getting Dynorod out to deal with it, which left us with a kitchen covered in faecal matter. Delightful.