Issues post completion

martindow

To play deviI's advocate,  I suppose a septic tank system where the leach field is blocked (I assume that is what is meant by broken) will become a cess pit as liquids will not drain away.  If they declared it as a cess pit I think this may be considered correct.  I'm not convinced they have made a false declaration or have they made other statements that are demonstrably false?

Cess pits are a problem as they need such frequent emptying as you have found.  It's an awful situation to be in, but I think you need to get going on fitting a compliant system as soon as you can which you will need for the long-term.  As others have said legal matters will grind on slowly and there seems no advantage to you in waiting for that to be resolved first.

youth_leader

I am sorry you are experiencing this. We shared a large old septic tank with our semi detached neighbour, the shared drain was in my north courtyard.  The neighbour came round several times to say their toilet had 'backed up'. I never used quilted toilet paper but know they did, I saw the puppies on the packets when they bought their shopping in!

We had the tank emptied three times over eighteen months at £600 a time, we paid £300 each.  Greedy greedy man who came to empty, I was angry when he rang a few months after the last emptying to say he was 'in the area'.  The last time was the straw that broke the camel's back.  We'd had torrential rain and my whole courtyard was flooded with 'brown' water.  I spent a long time shovelling up pooey gravel, argh.  Turned out our soakaway was on the drive of the next door neighbour - and he had a digger in his drive about eighteen months before.  We suspected his drive work had broken our soakaway but he wouldn't allow access, we had to go to a solicitor and he finally agreed to 'supervise us' hand digging down to see.  It was broken in several places.  Horrible, horrible man and we didn't talk to him for years - then he was the only one around when my husband died.  Best to keep on good terms with everyone, if you can.