Who is responsible?

[Mike_scotland]

Hi Group,

We have recently built a house and to the south of our garden just inside the boundary is a sewage pipe that takes effluent from our neighbors house away down the road and into a soakway we presume, a clause in our contract for buying the plot stated we were not aloud to tie into this drainage system, so we have not we have a sewage treatment plant and soakway mound on our plot.

back to the neighbors effluent pipework running along the south boundary, we have noticed its pooling just at the end of my property before it goes into the neighbors and its pooling quite bad and starting to smell, the builder of my house had replaced the entire pipework thats in our garden but it seems to be blocked further up the line into the neighbors garden and backfilling out into our garden somehow(Neighbors garden has alot of bushes,trees etc and its an old clay pipe so likely ruptured), im wondering can i ask the neighbor to fix it or am i part liable because its on my land or ?

Thanks,
Mike

[Temp]

Its not quite clear how many neighbours are involved. My reading is that House A relies on the pipe which goes through your garden (House B) then through garden of House C to a soakaway in D or ??

 

Where is the blockage? On land A? or land C?

. 

Its likely to be the responsibility of house A to sort out as its essentially their pipe. The exception might be if house C also uses it. See if the deeds give house A a right of access to B,C and D for maintenance purposes?   

 

It's possible that the slope of the land means that one or more houses have a right to let rainwater run off their property onto yours but that does not extend to sewage. Sewage flooding onto your garden would amount to a statutory nuisance. If they refuse to do anything about it you can try and get the Environmental Health Officer to  intervene but EHO can be busy and aren't always very helpful. 

[Conor]

Here (NI) a sewer that collects more than one property, is considered to be property of the water company (NIW). This applies to old connections Installed by developers - e.g. a row of terraces with a backyard sewer collecting all.

 

My first port of call would be to ring the water company and ask if they have records and ownership / adoption details. Of they aren't forthcomi.g, ask them to send a technician out to survey. That's what we did as there was a dispute over a pipe we found in our garden (opposite scenario though, we needed to prove it was ours, and not NIWs!)

 

 

 

 

 

[Mike_scotland]

2 hours ago, Temp said:

Its not quite clear how many neighbours are involved. My reading is that House A relies on the pipe which goes through your garden (House B) then through garden of House C to a soakaway in D or ??

 

Where is the blockage? On land A? or land C?

. 

Its likely to be the responsibility of house A to sort out as its essentially their pipe. The exception might be if house C also uses it. See if the deeds give house A a right of access to B,C and D for maintenance purposes?   

 

It's possible that the slope of the land means that one or more houses have a right to let rainwater run off their property onto yours but that does not extend to sewage. Sewage flooding onto your garden would amount to a statutory nuisance. If they refuse to do anything about it you can try and get the Environmental Health Officer to  intervene but EHO can be busy and aren't always very helpful. 

Thats pretty accurate,  a b c etc  i think house a c d and so on use the line im house B and i have my own things for sewage treatment  i was specifically told i couldnt connect.

[Temp]

Not sure about Scotland but in England all shared pipes are now responsibility of the water co if they connect to their system. See below.

 

If it connects to a shared soakaway or cesspit then its going to be the responsibility of the houses that share but you may have to look at the deeds to see exactly who owns which bit. House A is probably responsible for the bit from house A to where house C connects into it.

 

[nod]

We have a similar situation 

Perhaps I’m over simplifying 

But I would say it’s definitely not your responsibility 

If the pipe belongs to your neighbor 

Its there responsibility to maintain it 

If it was your pipe Oozing out onto the neighbors 

You wouldn’t need to think who’s responsibility it was to fix it 

 

 

[joe90]

My sister has a shared pipe through her garden and it started leaking poo etc and water co etc not interested so she contacted envoironmental health and they instructed said water company to attend or they would get a court order….they were there within an hour 🙄

[ProDave]

4 hours ago, Mike_scotland said:

back to the neighbors effluent pipework running along the south boundary, we have noticed its pooling just at the end of my property before it goes into the neighbors and its pooling quite bad and starting to smell, the builder of my house had replaced the entire pipework thats in our garden but it seems to be blocked further up the line into the neighbors garden and backfilling out into our garden somehow

You need to work out if this is actually raw sewage on it's way to a treatment system or the mains sewer, or the outflow from a treatment system to a soakaway.

 

If this but of ground that is flooding is the lowest point of the land in the vicinity, it might just be the soakaway, if that is what it is, is overwhelmed and simply flooding as it is incapable of handling the volume of liquid put into it (and they knew that hence why you were not allowed to add to it)

[Mike_scotland]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

You need to work out if this is actually raw sewage on it's way to a treatment system or the mains sewer, or the outflow from a treatment system to a soakaway.

 

If this but of ground that is flooding is the lowest point of the land in the vicinity, it might just be the soakaway, if that is what it is, is overwhelmed and simply flooding as it is incapable of handling the volume of liquid put into it (and they knew that hence why you were not allowed to add to it)

Its 100% a pipe thats goes passed about 5 houses and away miles from my land bud, i think its backflowing from upstream into the chamber that my builder put in for rodding, its pretty deep now though so cant get a good look. I think ill speak to my neighbours at weekend and if nothing done contact sepa

[SteamyTea]

When I bought this place I took out a one off insurance to cover the shared sewage pipe that crosses my land.

A few years back I had notification that SW Water had taken over responsibility of all the sewage pipes.

Never got any of my money back from the insurance company.

[Mike_scotland]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

When I bought this place I took out a one off insurance to cover the shared sewage pipe that crosses my land.

A few years back I had notification that SW Water had taken over responsibility of all the sewage pipes.

Never got any of my money back from the insurance company.

Hi Steamy, even taking over private sewage? 

[Mike_scotland]

3 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

Hi Steamy, even taking over private sewage? 

seen this on the SW website,  

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

Hi Steamy, even taking over private sewage? 

Well I think this is the whole thing.

The pipeline was private, though connected to public sewers.

No idea if the final sewage treatment is private, with only the pipework crossing your land.

I would give the local water company a call and ask.

[ProDave]

I take it you have notified the issue to the neighbours that own / use the pipe?  What have they said they will do?

 

If you want to get nasty, report a pollution incident to SEPA

[Mike_scotland]

9 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I take it you have notified the issue to the neighbours that own / use the pipe?  What have they said they will do?

 

If you want to get nasty, report a pollution incident to SEPA

Yes and they have said they will contact there landlord, who is the local farmer(Complete nightmare) hes going to say its my builders fault almost guaranteed but the house is no where near the pipework and the pipework got replaced from my builder and he put in a rodding point and hatch thing.

[MikeSharp01]

15 hours ago, Temp said:

If it connects to a shared soakaway or cesspit then its going to be the responsibility of the houses that share but you may have to look at the deeds to see exactly who owns which bit. House A is probably responsible for the bit from house A to where house C connects into it.

Have you a link for your image - my neighbor has a similar issue, as @Mike_scotland, which by the looks of that diagram they don't if you get my drift.

[MikeSharp01]

If the pipe is the property of the sewage company does that mean no easements are needed? 

15 hours ago, Temp said:

 

 

Would not all the properties without connection running into the public highway sewer not need easements across all the properties. SO the left most property above will need 4 easements, the next 3 and so on?

[Mike_scotland]

The red is my house boundaries the purple is the pipework it runs from the left passed my garden to the right and away somewhere unsure were its going, the pooling water is occurring at the bottom right of my garden, im thinking the line is blocked further to the right and backfilling into my property, my builder replaced the whole section of line within my garden but further down in the other neighboring gardens its old clay type pipework. see photo 2 of the replacement pipe in my section of land only months ago.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

 

 

Dig a channel into you neighbour's garden.

[Mike_scotland]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

Dig a channel into you neighbour's garden.

it did cross my mind haha but i would rather get it sorted for everybodys sake mate, once its sorted, my builder reckons its a blockage further up there line and suggests getting it unblocked and a camera survey done to pinpoint the issues and have it all in writiing but i dont see why i should be paying for it lol

[Carrerahill]

16 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

it did cross my mind haha but i would rather get it sorted for everybodys sake mate, once its sorted, my builder reckons its a blockage further up there line and suggests getting it unblocked and a camera survey done to pinpoint the issues and have it all in writiing but i dont see why i should be paying for it lol

If it was me and your neighbours were amenable and not feckless, handless types, then I would be thinking about getting some rods down the line and see what you can do initially. On a run like that I would be concerned as to why it blocked up, slipped joint, or is there a branch or chamber with a bad bend or high point that has led to a blockage. Straight lines of soil pipe laid correctly should be bombproof. You show a photo of the pipe, no pea gravel in sight, did they just throw it in and bury it? If the pipe section with a blockage is anything like that I can see all sorts of issues potentially from settlement letting poorly coupled pipes disconnect and slip etc. 

[Mike_scotland]

11 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

If it was me and your neighbours were amenable and not feckless, handless types, then I would be thinking about getting some rods down the line and see what you can do initially. On a run like that I would be concerned as to why it blocked up, slipped joint, or is there a branch or chamber with a bad bend or high point that has led to a blockage. Straight lines of soil pipe laid correctly should be bombproof. You show a photo of the pipe, no pea gravel in sight, did they just throw it in and bury it? If the pipe section with a blockage is anything like that I can see all sorts of issues potentially from settlement letting poorly coupled pipes disconnect and slip etc. 

pea gravel and all that is down i think this is a proper drainage company that put it in

Edited May 10, 2022 by Mike_scotland

[Mike_scotland]

7 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

If it was me and your neighbours were amenable and not feckless, handless types, then I would be thinking about getting some rods down the line and see what you can do initially. On a run like that I would be concerned as to why it blocked up, slipped joint, or is there a branch or chamber with a bad bend or high point that has led to a blockage. Straight lines of soil pipe laid correctly should be bombproof. You show a photo of the pipe, no pea gravel in sight, did they just throw it in and bury it? If the pipe section with a blockage is anything like that I can see all sorts of issues potentially from settlement letting poorly coupled pipes disconnect and slip etc. 

the blockacge is out of the shot of that photo we reckon, its not a new pipe further up

[ProDave]

55 minutes ago, Mike_scotland said:

my builder replaced the whole section of line within my garden but further down in the other neighboring gardens its old clay type pipework.

It's a shame you did that, that gives them ammunition to blame you.  If you had just left it all untouched and undisturbed and it leaked, it would be much more clear cut.

 

WHY did you replace it?  Because it was leaking?

[Mike_scotland]

4 minutes ago, ProDave said:

It's a shame you did that, that gives them ammunition to blame you.  If you had just left it all untouched and undisturbed and it leaked, it would be much more clear cut.

 

WHY did you replace it?  Because it was leaking?

my builder changed it out himself without even consulting us, we were told we had to replace and concrete the driveway in anyway so he just done the lot and put in a inspection chamber. it cant be us who have damaged it if its brand new pipework and our part isnt blocked, its further down, well wait for the neighbors response anyway.