Shared septic tank on land of house we want to purchase. Any advice?

[flanagaj]

I have found a property that we really like, that has great potential for extension and renovation.  The only sticking point, is that we have just found out from the survey that whilst we knew it had a septic tank, we have just discovered that the tank is also shared by two neighbouring properties.   This has left me rather concerned and just wondering if anyone can offer any guidance as to what I should be doing next before making a decision as to whether to purchase or to walk away.

 

Thanks

[nod]

You could put your own treatment plant in 

It may be a condition of sale for the seller to upgrade to a TP Or knock money off to do this 

 

[Crunchynut]

I bought our house 23 years ago. In-laws told me not to buy a house with a septic tank since they are nothing but trouble. Of course, I ignored that advice. Spent the last 22 years constantly fettling that nightmare tank - they were right. Has been much better since I replaced it with a treatment plant last year.
 

So in the absence of detail, my headline advice would be not to take it as it is, without a plan and agreement to replace it with a treatment plant as @nod says. And a treatment plant that just services your own house at that.

[nod]

What seems to be happening local to me A sale is agreed and then the purchasers solicitor flags that the property is on a septic tank and needs to be replaced in order for the sale to go through 

Technically speaking the authorities can insist you change a septic tank But most seem to be doing via the sale route instead 

12-15 thousand pounds seems to be the going rate 

 

[Redoctober]

10 hours ago, flanagaj said:

The only sticking point, is that we have just found out from the survey that whilst we knew it had a septic tank, we have just discovered that the tank is also shared by two neighbouring properties.   

 Hello - our 3 neighbours share an old septic tank and for the past 5 years, they have had no problems whatsoever doing so. One of them takes on the responsibilty of arranging it to be de-sludged anually and they share the costs.

We purchased the plot next door and have installed our own treatment plant - a requirement as the exisiting one next door would not cope with additional "traffic" - As for costs, our one is available for around the £3k mark - installation costs not included.

[Temp]

Where does it drain to? Soakaway? Ditch?

 

If your Septic Tank discharges into surface water (stream, river, ditch, surface water drain etc) it should have been replaced by a sewage treatment plant by 1st of January 2020 (might have been extended to 2022?)

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/general-binding-rules-small-sewage-discharge-to-the-ground

 

https://www.easymerchant.co.uk/blog/septic-tank-regulations/

 

Quote

 

Under the new Environment Agency Septic Tank General Binding Rules, if you’ve a specific septic tank that discharges to surface water (river, stream, ditch, etc.) you are required to upgrade or replace your septic tank treatment system to a full sewage treatment plant by 2022, or when you sell property, if it’s prior to this date.

 

 

 

12 hours ago, flanagaj said:

we have just discovered that the tank is also shared by two neighbouring properties. 

 

 

Check what the deeds of all three properties say about their rights and responsibilities for maintenance costs etc.

 

The biggest problems with any shared facilities occur when you have neighbours that don't pay their share or even cooperate with you when you offer to pay.  

[crooksey]

Depends, if it goes to a drainage field also on your property, it will be a nightmare.

 

Do you have a ditch/stream within your boundary you can discharge to, or a big enough garden?

 

My advice, if you really like the property, consult a drainage engineer (or a local sewage company who empty spetic tanks) and ask for a quote and percolation testing to install a new sewage plant and drainage field. You can then find out 1) if its even fee-sable and 2) roughly what its going to cost.

 

If you have a stream/ditch/river within the boundary, I could blindly estimate the supply and install of a sewage plant for £7-£10k.

[flanagaj]

Some really interesting points here.  The tank is located at the bottom of the garden and there does not appear to be a stream, so it must just soak into the ground.

Am I in my legal rights to purchase the property and mandate that they have to move the tank into their own property so that I can install a sewage treatment plant that services just the one property?

[JohnMo]

Aren't septic tanks illegal now? Thought you had to have a treatment plant, or is that just a Scottish thing?

[jfb]

11 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

Am I in my legal rights to purchase the property and mandate that they have to move the tank into their own property so that I can install a sewage treatment plant that services just the one property?

Can’t help you on the legal side though presumably a lot depends on what is written in the land documents.

But don’t underestimate the impact on neighbour relations that any such request might cause, no matter how much the law is on your side.

[crooksey]

7 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Aren't septic tanks illegal now? Thought you had to have a treatment plant, or is that just a Scottish thing?

 

Fine in the UK with a drainage field. Most of the time though building regs/planning will get involved and heavily question/advise against it.

[ToughButterCup]

Well @flanagaj Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

 

Briefly: Here Be Dragons. When the soft and Smelly hits the rotating blade it gets everywhere.

 

Not so Briefly

4 Lancastrian 'chocolate box cottages ' all in a row, everyone pooping down the same septic hole, sun shining, blackbirds singing: everything was lovely. One lovely old lady on her own, one young family of three, one codger and his floozy, and us four. All was sweetness, and light.

 

Lovely old lady dies. Son moves in. Throws his weight around, brings his nasty terriers in - 24 hour barkers (working dogs you see ).   Also brings his rifle in and starts shooting. (6 months later the Police rescind his license)

 

We apply for PP, and within a week, the neighbour comes and nails our back gate shut. We have access rights across his garden.

Why?

He didn't like the fact that we suggested we would discharge to a local stream and avoid adding to the septic tank.......

 

He thought he could object to our build most effectively by saying the septic tank couldn't take any more 'volume'

 

 

8 years later he struggles to say a civil word to me. 

 

So the answer to your question is: it depends on people: there neither is nor can be one clear-cut answer. People change, move away, die, have opinions and are generally inconvenient.

 

Best o' Luck fella. Best o' Luck.

 

[Kelvin]

TBC nails it above. Sharing anything with neighbours is fine until it isn’t then it can become a pia. Our previous house had a shared catchment tank and associated pump plant, shared visitor parking, shared grounds, shared drive, bin store, shared large brick shed. We managed all this via a mgt committed run by the home owners. It mostly sort of worked but became challenging as we were selling and got worse after we moved. I vowed never to buy another house with shared anything. 

[Temp]

2 hours ago, flanagaj said:

Am I in my legal rights to purchase the property and mandate that they have to move the tank into their own property so that I can install a sewage treatment plant that services just the one property?

 

Probably not. There might be something in the deeds that gives them the right to discharge into the shared tank, but even if not they might have acquired a right over time. Discuss with solicitor.

 

Title deeds are cheap to download from the real land registry website..

 

https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/

 

 

 

 

[Gus Potter]

20 hours ago, flanagaj said:

I have found a property that we really like, that has great potential for extension and renovation. 

Well that is a positive start and there is loads of great info in this thread. This sort of thing can cause concern but if you gather the facts the problem / concern can go away.

 

I'll put my own slant on this so here goes.

 

The legislation in Scotland works on the basis that the polluter pays.. last time I looked the same principles apply in the rest of the UK. Thus it is OK in some cases to have a septic tank..(they are not illegal in Scotland and certainly existing septic tanks in the rest of the UK) a big brick tank or glass fibre type bottle sunk in the ground. In Scotland when we want sell a house we need to register the tank.. it can be any tank.. spetic or a tank that treats the water to some degree often called a package treatment plant.

 

In a septic tank the soil water from the house goes into this and settles out, heavy sediment on the bottom and fats on the top. There is an outlet that is designed to sit below the fat layer and this cleaner water goes into a soak away. Now you can see that the only "treatment" that occurs in a septic tank is a process of separating the fats and heavy material.. there is some Anaerobic digestion that takes place but ignore that for now. A septic tank is designed to make sure the water exiting from it does not block a soakaway, the biological oxygen demand, the ammonia content and potential "pathogen" content is not a consideration as this water soaks away safely into the ground. The main consideration is that the soakaway is far enough away from a water course or potable aquifer so as not to pollute and designed well enough so that the water going into a soakaway does not appear somewhere else.. often occurs if you are on a hill.

 

If was buying a house with a shared septic tank I would concentrate on the practical side then look at the legal:

 

1/ Where is the tank and what type is it? A septic tank, a packaged treatment plant... there are a few different kinds, the modern ones tend to need less maintenance = cost.

 

Water flows down hill so if the tank is in someone else's garden then they will suffer first! Sounds awfull but if sewage is bubbling up in your garden and the neighbours are not playing ball then you can face an uphill struggle.. causes friction.

 

2/ Next.. a really important is to know about the soakaway. Where is it and how much space is there round about it.

 

Sometimes you find that the soakaway is not within the curtilage of the dwellings that use it.. say in a farmer's field. Now often there is provision in the deeds that allow you to access the field for maintence of the soak away.. but once they get blocked.. which they do eventually then you often need to shift them a bit as the pores in the soil get filled up.. will the farmer let you do this?

 

If the houses have big gardens and the soakaway is within the cutilage of the dwellings that use it then you have scope to relocate the soakaway to some extent. But again where is the soakaway.. in your garden or elsewhere. Who gets their garden dug up?

 

Now it may be that you don't have a septic tank that discharges to a soakaway, rather you may have a treatment plant that treats the water like the public sewage works and discharges to a water course. This is different but not a problem once you know enough about it.

 

In the round if you love the house then start having a look at the practical side first .. then check the legal stuff.. cheeper to use you own common sense before paying legal fees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[flanagaj]

So the property deeds of the neighbouring properties do state that they have provision to route their waste to the septic tank in the garden of the house we are ear marked to purchase.  The tank does not drain to a water course and goes to a drainage field outside the property boundary.

Given the house was constructed in 1920 and it does not look like it has been modernised for at least 50 years, I suspect the system is very old.   This then has the inherent risk of it being in a poor state with most likely a drainage field that could be heavily silted up.

Whilst we are within our rights to install our own system and leave the existing system for the neighbours, you still have the hassle of what options you have should the system start to smell  .....

 

Such a shame, as we were smitten with the property before we discovered this ball ache. 

[Big Jimbo]

I know nothing about treatment plants, or cesspits. Who pays to have all the solids sucked out now ? It could be fine for another 100 years, by which time we will all be dead. If you are smitten find a way to make the situation work for you. Pop in and see the neighbour. Explain that you are a townie, and don't have a clue about how the cess-pit works, who pays for it etc. Nice way to meet your potential new nextdoories.

[joe90]

I used to live in a property with a shared septic tank (in a neighbours garden) and there was an agreement that any maintenance/emptying was shared cost wise. Might be wise to get it in writing BUT as @Big Jimbo says, talk to the neighbour and get a feel for how things might play out.

[flanagaj]

I have subsequently written a letter to one of the neighbours who used to also route their waste to the shared septic tank, but for whatever reason decided to install their own sewage treatment plant.  They hopefully, might be able to give me an unbiased view (agent / vendor) of the system and whether it has had any issues in the past.

[Kelvin]

The whatever reason is likely to be because  their sewerage system is now theirs and theirs alone so any problems is on them without relying on other people. They’ve also removed/reduced one considerable difficulty come sale time. Make sure you ask them where they discharge the water from the treatment plant to. 

[crooksey]

you could always approach the farmer, ask if you can site the septic tank on his land as well, then simply allow the other neighbours to route through your land on a sealed pipe.

 

If you can negotiate £10k off the asking price, 5k, for the farmer and 5 for the tank works, you may have a quick solution.

[Stanaro02]

Well this is all very odd. I came here for advice and it turns out that the property in this thread is the property we’re now looking to purchase in East Woodhay. Just like you @flanagaj we see great potential in the property but are very concerned about the septic tank which dates back to over 100 years ago. If the neighbours weren’t connected, we’d decommission the current tank and replace it with a building regs compliant and environmentally friendly alternative in a heartbeat. But unfortunately with the neighbours using it too, it makes the issue very complicated. From what I understand, it seemed you’d made good progress with getting new legal documents in place and signed for sharing the costs for maintenance, running and replacement (if required).
 

In a nutshell, we’re concerned that we’re inheriting a big problem so firstly, may I ask if there was any particular reason why you pulled out of this property. And secondly, did you receive a response from the owners of number 4, who it turns out are now moving?
 

Many thanks in advance. 

[flanagaj]

On 19/03/2024 at 06:07, Stanaro02 said:

Well this is all very odd. I came here for advice and it turns out that the property in this thread is the property we’re now looking to purchase in East Woodhay. Just like you @flanagaj we see great potential in the property but are very concerned about the septic tank which dates back to over 100 years ago. If the neighbours weren’t connected, we’d decommission the current tank and replace it with a building regs compliant and environmentally friendly alternative in a heartbeat. But unfortunately with the neighbours using it too, it makes the issue very complicated. From what I understand, it seemed you’d made good progress with getting new legal documents in place and signed for sharing the costs for maintenance, running and replacement (if required).
 

In a nutshell, we’re concerned that we’re inheriting a big problem so firstly, may I ask if there was any particular reason why you pulled out of this property. And secondly, did you receive a response from the owners of number 4, who it turns out are now moving?
 

Many thanks in advance. 

I have sent you a pm.   In a nutshell, we spent a fortune on the prelims for that property and we were disappointed that it didn't work for us.   Happy to chat further off the forum though.