Legal meaning of 'property' in General Binding Rules

[Omnibuswoman]

Does anyone know whether the term 'property' in the general binding rules, as in '... main sewer 30m from the boundary of the property' means the house itself, the edge of the bit we own solely, or the bit where the street and private property (in our case, our neighbour's driveway) meet?

 

Our house is down a long driveway. The house is @12m from the driveway. We solely own the final 15m of the driveway, we jointly own the middle 15m with our neighbour, and the remaining 15m is owned by our neighbour and meets the street. The sewer is a further 30m down the road from that.

 

My inkling is that joining the main sewer might make our project financially unviable, so I am keen to be allowed to install a water treatment system on our plot. 

 

Thanks

 

[IanR]

I would believe you could read this how it best suits you, so if you want to install a small treatment plant, it would not be unreasonable to assume property means the Title Deed for the house, which I assume is the house, its curtilage, and adjacent 15m of driveway. I expect the next section of driveway in shared ownership, so is on a different Title.

 

If you are able to work within the General Binding Rules, then you have no need to contact the EA, so no one will be involved to question it. 

[Omnibuswoman]

Thank you Ian. Yes, our title plan (attached) shows in red our plot, plus the initial stretch of driveway, the green is shared ownership, and yellow belongs to the neighbour but over which we have the right to pass etc. I am very happy to interpret the term ‘property’ as being our land only!

[Adsibob]

On 23/06/2021 at 15:39, Omnibuswoman said:

Does anyone know whether the term 'property' in the general binding rules, as in '... main sewer 30m from the boundary of the property' means the house itself, the edge of the bit we own solely, or the bit where the street and private property (in our case, our neighbour's driveway) meet?

"Boundary of the property" is different to "property" because the latter is a little ambiguous in that it could mean several things, from a chattel to real property, whereas the former is quite clear that it is referring to real property (i.e. land) and not to any building on the land. "Boundary of the property therefore means, in the strict sense the boundary around your land as shown on the title plan. Now whether you count that as your sole land or also including the shared ownership bit, is a bit unclear and I agree with @IanR that if one interpretation over the other suits you best you argue for that one, as they are both arguable.

Where I think you are on less strong ground is in respect of the portion of driveway that you don't own at all and just have an easement of access. That is not your property at all and certainly doesn't fall within its boundary.

[joe90]

On 23/06/2021 at 15:39, Omnibuswoman said:

so I am keen to be allowed to install a water treatment system on our plot. 

What do your neighbours do?, who can make you use the main sewer (if you don’t want to). Have you the ground etc to drain a treatment plant?

[Mr Punter]

How are you getting water and electric to the property?  It looks like you are up a fair slope.  Are you sure you are not able to connect to the sewer via gravity?

[Omnibuswoman]

On 08/07/2021 at 11:25, Mr Punter said:

How are you getting water and electric to the property?  It looks like you are up a fair slope.  Are you sure you are not able to connect to the sewer via gravity?

 

We have water and electricity coming up from the road at the bottom of the driveway. The electricity DNO are kindly digging the trench and allowing us to use this for our incoming water supply as well as electricity, and telecommunications.  However, the main sewer is a bit further away in the road, and would require us to pay to dig along the road for about 30m to reach the nearest manhole, or fund the building of another connection, which the SE said could be really very expensive.

 

We've plenty of land on which to build a drainage trench - we've acquired the land to the east of the plot, where the X and Y are noted on the plan above, and other than avoiding the two TPO tree zones, we have a lot of metres of land to play with.

 

The quote from the company that installs water processing tanks is just £6,500 plus VAT (and I may be able to zero VAT it or claim the VAT back), which is very considerably less costly than going down to the road and connecting to the main sewer. 

[Omnibuswoman]

 

On 08/07/2021 at 09:37, joe90 said:

What do your neighbours do?, who can make you use the main sewer (if you don’t want to). Have you the ground etc to drain a treatment plant?

 

Our neighbour to the east links to the drains for the property in front of it - when she built her house, the house in front was her fathers, so they just connected to their foul waste pipes. That means there are no other sewer pipes we could link to anywhere on or near the driveway, sadly.

 

The regulations that say that we have to have permission to install a treatment tank if the property boundary is 30m or less from a mains sewer-  I think this is enforced by the Environment Agency, but I would need to check that. The question of boundary is discussed above, but I'm interpreting it as our boundary - the part outlined in red on the plans - which finishes around 45m from the road where the sewer is located.

 

We're lucky that we do have plenty of land (the garden is 35m by 20m, with a bit excluded because of a TPO zone). In the long run, a septic tank will be considerably cheaper than digging up the road, and paying foul waste charges on the water bill.

[Mr Punter]

If the sewer is in the road at the end of the drive you can connect onto the pipe with a saddle connection.  You won't need to connect at the manhole.

[IanR]

2 hours ago, Omnibuswoman said:

I think this is enforced by the Environment Agency, but I would need to check that.

 

It is, but not proactively. If you work within the General Binding Rules they don't even know you have a treatment plant, so you'd only come on their radar if a complaint is made due to a problem.

 

That doesn't mean it should be taken likely though, there are serious fines and possible custodial sentences for breaking the rules, although obviously only for negligent or wilful acts.

 

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by IanR

[Omnibuswoman]

20 hours ago, IanR said:

 

That doesn't mean it should be taken likely though, there are serious fines and possible custodial sentences for breaking the rules, although obviously only for negligent or wilful acts.

 

 

Yes, I noticed that the penalties were quite severe. I have emailed South West Water to find out their interpretation of the words 'boundary of the property' but have heard nothing back as yet. I will chase them up about that, and will ask the septic tank supplier who have quoted for the work for their thoughts/experience of the interpretation of the general binding rules. 

 

The only downside I can see to taking the septic tank option is that the ground is not very permeable - it is something called shillet - which means that the permeable pipes need to be about 45m long. But the company we are thinking about using are a local firm so will be quite used to working with this kind of ground.