We purchased a brand new house from a national builders.  When we moved in we discovered   we had three main sewer drains in the bottom of my garden.  At no time where we made aware of this from either the builders or the solicitor.  Should they have mentioned it or is it a general rule of thumb that this is not normally discussed?  I am not really bothered about the drains if I had known about them but now I have realised that if there was a blokage or a problem in the street I would have to give access to whoever to gain access and again this was not mentioned...can anyone offer any advice?

I might be wrong but, aren't any drains on your property your
responsability, if there was a blockage would you have to pay?
Did you have a survey done, 
I would contact national builders and ask them about it first.
To see were you stand
Someone more knowledgeable will be along soon im sure :-)

Donna

We have a private road outside our house and yes if there is any problem we have to find the funds to explore the problem (access to drains) :rolleyes: as its within our property its doesnt come under the councils responsibility.

BUT with a new build the solicitor would have seen the plans/done the searches and explained this to you thats what you pay them for as we nearly pulled out due to the council not adopting our 'private' road.

I might be wrong but, aren't any drains on your property your
responsability,  No that is incorrect not the man hole drains. This will be the manholes for several houses around.

In New estates the drains and manhole chambers are now no longer put in the roads but in the service area of some of the houses. The original poster won't be the only one to have them there will be a few houses the same within the street. 

Now I think about it I have had them in several houses.  We tend to always make sure they are a little lower that the grass height so you can run right over with the lawn mower with no problem

Generally (only a few exceptions) everyone  has to give access as and when required to the service area of their  plot.  Most drains fall into this area.

Can't really see the problem.  Any disruption done is put right by them.

These will be new drains created by the builder, he will or should maintain them until the drains and roads are adopted by the local authority. 

I wouldn't be too concerned.  I have 2 in my front yard.

I've got a leaking water supply pipe in my neighbours garden at the moment (can't get a plumber to even come and look at it so far :rolleyes:)  It's a private supply so although United Utilities came and had an exploratory dig the work was beyond what they would do under their budget that they allow for "good will" work, anyhoo they told me I have right of access to my neighbours but I must put good again but there is a fairly large chance that the damage is actually under a conservatory that they recently plonked on top of my supply The UU fella said he didn't understand the legal implications of that beyond thinking the neighbour should have rerouted my supply round it, but didn't think he was obliged to do so by law I would have right of access, though, to dig up his conservatory floor if I put it back again at my expense!  Fancy tiles an all!  He did say these old private supplies are a nightmare in legal terms but do you know where I might stand with this Blue?

hmm this is a bit of a mess :rolleyes:  this may well be a building insurance job.  The next door really should have checked what was running underneath and then checked with the service providers to ensure they could build on top of it without rerouting. To be honest depending how the deeds are written your next door neighbour will not only have to give access but they could possibly have to put their own area right at their own expense.This is all may and could though as Property law is complicated and I would need to read the deeds etc to give an honest opinion and certainly on a public board ;-)  generally there are provisions written in to cover services.

When you say itis a private supply what do you mean? a private supply coming from where and who?

Thanks for getting back to me Blue, sorry I have been out all afternoon.  Perhaps I should say shared supply as they are all private once they leave the main and enter private property aren't they?  The pipe runs along the front gardens of 4 cottages finishing at mine.  I have really drawn the short straw as I am 1/4 responsible for the bit from the main to cottage 1, 1/3 responsible from cottage 2's supply to cottage 3's etc until finally fully responsible beyond cottage 3 but I knew that bit when I took it on and as all the cottage grounds are small even if we had to replace the whole dang lot it should not have amounted to too much but dropping a conservatory on top of my supply and the bit that I am 100% responsible for has temporarily phased me ;)  That's encouraging that you think he might have to make good himself although I realise I would have to speak to my solicitor to check our particular case if it came to it to be sure.  I don't see him very often and he's not a terribly sociable man, about the only think he has ever said to me when we first moved there was to look over the fence and say "I don't like dogs" :rolleyes: but we seem to rub along OK so if push comes to shove as the leak is under there I might suggest he reroutes the pipe round his conservatory rather than have it dug up and hope he just accepts the cost if not I suppose I would need to speak to my solicitor and see if we can force the issue but it's never good to fall out is it? :)

Isobel, regarding the conservatory, wouldnt he have needed planning consent to put one up? If so, you should have seen a letter placed on his property where all can see so that anyone who wants to object can, and as it was over your water supply I would have thought you would have had every reason to put in an objection. He may well of taken it down, which he shouldn't have.You can go onto your local council web site to see if he has had permission, as they publish the consents there, although its a bit of a trawl to find them if you don't know the number. Or you could ring them, see what they advise.If he needed permission, and didnt bother, then at the end of the day he may have to remove it, or re-route the water pipe. I can't see the council granting permission if it went over a water pipe, and even if he had, I would think he is on a sticky wicket should a leak occur under his property. There may even be a clause in the deeds stating no building is allowed over the pipe. if you apply for planning consent, you have to say the property is yours, if not then you have to serve a notice of intent to build over the other persons property and serve notice on them, so they can object if necessary. if you don't serve notice, even if the permission is granted, it will be made void. As you have property (the pipe and your supply) where he wanted to build, this may be in your favour. Just a thought.

Yes, we were notified of planning application but didn't think at the time about whether it went over our water supply just about the visual impact etc and didn't object because we have a conservatory ourselves :).  I haven't managed to speak to the relevent planning officer yet, he has been on holiday, but that is very interesting what you say about notice of intent I shall ask him about that.  Meantime I have still not seen neighbour so have left a letter asking him to phone us and mentioning the United Utilities fella thought it would be best to reroute round and hoping that he will just do that :)  Not even thinking about what will happen if the sewer goes belly up as there would probably not be enough incline on it if we had to reroute that .

With regard to the notice of intent, its a two pronged thing in that he would have also had to sign the planning application to say he owned all rights to the land. As I say, Im not sure if drains, water pipes etc are classed the same as land. I know this because we had planning approved, and had to serve notice on the farmer whos land we wanted some to take over when we buy it, but as we didnt own it when we put the plans in we had to sign that we didnt own it all, and serve a notice on him even though he had no objections, and sign we had done so. if not the planning, even if approved, is invalid. I'm sure you don't want him to knock it down, but it may be a strong lever to make him pay to re-route the pipe. As to the drainage, that could be a tricky one regarding levels etc if it had to be moved. I don't envy you all this, its a right pain.

I managed to get hold of the Planning Officer yesterday, he says it is not a planning issue at all.  Building over someones water supply "is not good building practice" but he could not say how the law would view it.  If the neighbour does not contact us soon and we cannot negotiate a solution I suppose I will then go and see just where I stand legally but hopefully it won't come to that :)

Oh well Isobel, it was worth a phone call :) I hope it works out for you.

Planning applications normally follow a neighbour notification procedure now. I think the day of plans stuck to houses are now over, ( well they 100% are certainly  in Scotland) :-)

An applications is lodged to Planning control , along with a letter that all houses around the applicants house have had outline copies of the intended alteration.  On this letter it has the planning number, office where you can see full drawings.

Our local council has all planning applications viewable on it's web-site :)

Daisy

We still have planning application notices stuck to houses here  and I have never had a letter from anyone near to me regarding their planning applications, this notice is put in the local press and anyone wanting to object has 21 days to do so, with the plans being able to be viewed at the council offices.

Oh dear looks like your council is stuck in Victorian times. :-)  That is why I said most.

A notice stuck to a house to me is hardly the best way to info people that their next door neighbour is about to build another house in their back yard ;-)   Very few people buy papers the way the used to.

LOL Blue....youre not joking there! :rolleyes: But you can always tell if someone is after planning coz there is a sudden growth of yellow posters everywhere on gates, fences, houses etc ;) And businesses who offer their services for building materials, doors and windows etc etc swamp you with their advertising stuff, even as far away as London (a good 3-4 hrs drive away) I have no idea where they get the address from unless they watch the councils websites. Just wondered what other councils in England do, anyone know?

Yes, still notices put up.  Also letters to near neighbours but if an application fails any further applications are only notified to those who objected first time round which seems wrong to me because a neighbour could have an objection to a revised plan where they didn't to the first.  There is also a very good planning portal on line so its braces and two belts in the Lake District :)

Notices on the boundary of the property to which the application applies are still compulsory under law in England and Wales. :) These give an address where plans are viewable (usually the Council offices but sometimes closer as well) - and many are viewable on websites as well.

I have the main inspection to the drains in my Garden too.  thankfully no-one but me has ever needed access as it is covered by a very ehavy concrete slap that needs several grwon men with levers to lift it.

When I enquired from the Waterborad about ahving a proper manhole cover put on, it seems it woudl ahve to be at my expense so I ahve left it.  The bricks at the top are loose too :(

If it was my brother-in-law he would be after compensation from the builder he niggles about everything and usually gets his way, so get in touch with your house builder and complain you were never told.

As Blue tells you it will be repaired and unblocked by the council if needed, so do not worry about that a small water drain on a private drive is always paid for by the householder but not a main sewage drain.

We do need these drains and they are usually no problem they have to go somewhere!

But you can try your luck with the builder, you never know.

not really bothered about them being there... just really angry that i was not informed the solicitor said they were not on any plans which he had.  Would that be a fault of the builder or should they have beeen shown on the water search for example?

As far as I know the builder should know every little thing about the land they have bought, so I should stick with your complaint against the builder. They in turn can then correspond with the waterboard. :-)

Just another way of looking at it.  Do you have a water meter?  I would guess not if your supply is shared.  If you apply to have a water meter the water company should go some way to helping you have a new pipe laid to facilitate the installation of a water meter.  Just a thought.  That way you would have your own water supply with good mains pressure and may get some of the cost off set by the water company.   The one I worked for would do that I don't know about UU.

Good thought! Thanks :)  Been thinking about a meter for a while as, only being their weekends, our water consumption is low.  If neighbour proves tricky I may well look into that, although totally bypassing the other cottages would entail quite a bit of new piping, 100 yards or so.

We used to live on a private estate and the couple who lived opposite us found out whilst the sale of their brand new house was going through that they were built on the main sewer pipes for the estate - got the solicitor involved and compensation was payed! I would push your solicitor as this should haveshown on the plans during purchase.

Traybabe

Where is your meter Isobel? you should only be liable for repairs etc from the meter that shows your reading to your house, or are you all on one meter with pipes leading to your seperate homes? Who works out the bill?

We are not metered.

If they are very old water pipes they will probably not show on plans, quite often happened where we are.  Your neighbours obviously knew about the pipes though so they could be partly liable.  The water company are duty bound to reduce leakage on their pipes, they may be able to advise you how to get it sorted but I still think the metering idea is a good one, they may meet you half way.  Dont give up with the first response keep pushing.