Buying a house with extension over sewer but no build over agreement

otty13

Hi,

We've found out the house we are in the process of buying has an extension that was built over public foul sewer with no build over agreement. (The extension was done in 2019 by the previous owners and is about 5 meters wide). They did get building regs certificate for the extension but for some reason didn't get a build over agreement.

The is a manhole in the garden on one side of the extension. Not sure if there is one on the other side in the neighbour's garden. - from the searches it looks like the public sewer stops at the end of our garden.

The sellers solicitor has offered an indemnity policy for this but we are a bit worried and wondering if we should go forward with the purchase.

We've heard that if the water company is made aware of the issue the insurance would be void so we are a bit worried that it could impact us when we want to sell and worried to be liable for issues as well in case the insurance wouldn't pay.

The extension is an open plan kitchen-living room so if they ever needed to dig things up that would be not ideal at all.

otty13

Just to add, the current seller would be the one getting the indemnity policy. He said he " was provided with no advice and nothing was done to deal with this issue when he bought". No sure why the issue wasn't flagged then by his solicitor. 

I've seen people recommending getting a CCTV inspection of the pipes? Would that be something useful to do and should we ask the seller to pay for that? 

Could we ask for the general price of the house to be reduced? The kitchen extension was a big selling point of the house and why we went over asking price but we had no ideas about the issues and the water company having the right to dig up the kitchen or ask for the extension to be tore down.

Section62

otty13 said:

I've seen people recommending getting a CCTV inspection of the pipes? Would that be something useful to do and should we ask the seller to pay for that? 

How much of a problem it might be depends on the type of sewer, and to some extent the material the pipe is made from.

If there is no CCTV from after the building work then it would be sensible to ask the vendor to arrange and pay for a CCTV survey of the pipe in its current condition.  They may say 'no', in which case you might want to consider paying for a drainage survey yourself (including other drainage on the property as well).

If the sewer does stop in your garden (or next door) then it is likely to be a small diameter pipe serving only a couple of properties, and problems with that could probably be resolved without affecting the extension.

However, public sewer maps are unreliable and don't include all public sewers.  The appearance of the sewer ending at the end of the garden might just be that the sewer beyond that point hasn't been mapped yet.  It is also possible the sewer on the mapping isn't the one under the extension.

But a CCTV survey would give more reassurance about what is there and what the risks might be.

ReadingTim

Totally standard and normal: my previous house (a Victorian 2 up 2 down terrace) had a modern kitchen/bathroom extension which crossed over the public sewer - it wasn't an issue when I bought the place in 2006 but somehow was by 2021 when I sold it, meaning I had to pay for an indemnity.  I believe legislation changed sometime in the intervening years which gave rise to these issues, and indemnities seem to be the way it's solved. 

I imagine a vast number of Victorian terraces face similar issues (especially those originally built without indoor bathrooms), so if you're worried about this issue in terms of this particular property, you're probably best avoiding this style/generation of property completely.  You're also unlikely to have much success with getting the vendor to foot the bill for any rectification (aside from the aforementioned indemnity), or any CCTV surveys.  You are, of course, free to pay for them yourself, if you're worried, but I'd suggest that, generally speaking, such worries are likely to be unfounded.