Developer wants to buy us out of our septic tank seepage right on their land.

jonnydeppiwish!

YBR said:

At face value, in this situation, I'd take the opportunity to have developer pay for connecting my house to the public sewer and reinstatement of the garden. Not having to maintain a septic tank, or indeed be reliant on someone else's would be a good way to go.

As others have said - get them to plumb you in. A lot easier than a septic tank!

chrisw

Another vote for grabbing the opportunity to potentially connect to foul sewer. 

kbj2010

Thanks for all the responses. Just to clarify a couple of points for those asking:

We don't currently have a septic tank in our garden.
We share a new water treatment plant with our neighbour situated on their garden installed just before we completed on our house purchase 5yrs ago. 

We have the right to seepage on to the development land in our deeds. If for some reason we did decided to install our own in the next 36yrs we could put any seepage to the development land and not in our garden. 

The new planned houses are a reasonable distance  from our boundary and there's no plan to build any closer as they're having to deliver a percentage of the development for biodiversity net gain (which protects it for the next 30yrs. 

It would be quite an undertaking to connect us to the mains on the site with the distance the closest houses are. 

£10-15k and covering our legal cost was mentioned in our conversation, nothing about linking us to the mains, but we agreed to nothing and are seeking some legal advice atm. It would actually be easier to link our neighbour to the mains than just ourselves as both our houses drain to the same place right now, if we were going to go down that route. 

kbj2010

The right to seepage is from our garden btw (for a tank that doesn't exist), not our neighbours. The current ST on our neighbours garden has the right to seep on to land which isn't owned by the developers. 

Grumpy_chap

kbj2010 said:

It would be quite an undertaking to connect us to the mains on the site with the distance the closest houses are. 

So?
Why not use this as an opportunity to get some betterment?
It will be more valuable in the long run than the right to discharge seepage.
Also, the right to discharge seepage is not there for the long run - only 36 years.  What will you do in 36 years if the neighbour blocks off the septic tank and you need your own?  
You may think you won't be there in 36 years, but a keen Solicitor will see the right expires and ask for you to extend prior to sale, which this Developer clearly won't extend.

Slinky

I don't see anybody so far on this thread saying keep your seepage rights, a treatment plant is something desirable. All these people are people who might potentially want to buy your house one day, and could be put off by having off-grid sewerage. I know I would give it a wide swerve.

Take this opportunity to get your sewerage onto the mains, and as much money from the developers as possible.

Emmia

OP what exactly is your objection to being connected to a sewer?

SarahB16

Slinky said:

I don't see anybody so far on this thread saying keep your seepage rights, a treatment plant is something desirable. All these people are people who might potentially want to buy your house one day, and could be put off by having off-grid sewerage. I know I would give it a wide swerve.

Take this opportunity to get your sewerage onto the mains, and as much money from the developers as possible.

I absolutely second this.  Definitely take this opportunity to get your sewerage onto the mains.  You never know when you may wish to sell your house and as Slinky has said the septic tank will deter many prospective purchasers.  

Your next door neighbour may move and your new neighbour may insist you have your own septic tank.  

The developer is only thinking about (highest possible) sales prices and (quickest possible) sales rates and your right to seepage (in the future) could deter prospective purchasers and affect sales prices.  

I think you said it was a 92-home development.  Developing a scheme of that size the developer has the means to pay for you to be connected onto the mains so definitely take this wonderful opportunity that has presented itself to you.  

kbj2010

Emmia said:

OP what exactly is your objection to being connected to a sewer?

I don't have a problem with being connected to the mains and it might be something we discuss. 

Our deeds give us the right to share and have access to the ST on our neighbours garden. So legally our neighbour (current or future) cannot stop us from using it. 

Grumpy_chap

kbj2010 said:

Our deeds give us the right to share and have access to the ST on our neighbours garden. So legally our neighbour (current or future) cannot stop us from using it. 

What cost does that come with?  When it need maintenance or replacing?
Where does the neighbour have seepage to?  Does that right also expire at 36 years' time?