Manhole for someone else's Lateral drain / Public Sewer in my front garden

[myhouse]

Can anyone tell me what the legal position is if I have a sewer coming from other houses to a manhole in my front garden? The water company have surveyed the pipework today and basically said the drains / sewers have been set up in a very 'unusual' or non standard way. While neighbouring properties drain into the manhole in my front garden, my own waste does not - it goes elsewhere. In October I has raw sewage leaking onto the front garden through this manhole. The water company were quick to sort the blockage out - within 4 hours, but the problem was caused by toilet paper getting caught in tree roots that had breached the piping and thus will happen again.

Basically, its not my sewer but its on my land - which I'm not really happy about. It has always been assumed this was just a storm drain for my property - but apparently not. In addition the pipes are already faulty - the house is only 13 years old so there shouldn't be a problem. The manhole is only two metres from my front door. And finally - just to complicate matters further, its probably my conifer whose roots have damaged the drain. Although a council aborist has said that this shouldn't have happened if the piping had been installed properly - not that I think the builders will care after 13 years.

Any idea how I should approach the water company with this?

[johnny37]

Nota legal answe but this may help. This sounds very complex but in my experience I have always found water companies very helpful. There must be records of the pipes on your lands which are not yours, possibly in your deeds. I think they may be only responsible from the sewer up to where the pipes converge. I would suggest you contact them again to see what needs to be done to put things right. Also contact your local council planning department. It may be the pipes were not laid according to the planning approval in which case the council bear some responsibility. As a last resort contact your house insurers They may cover any defects and recover the cost from whoever is responsible.

[buildersmate]

Hmm, an interesting issue an I agree, this is very unusual. One can only speculate as to how this happened, but the most likely reason is that the land drains for the whole estate were established first with the groundworks, long before the developers legal chaps worked out exactly where to put the marker fences in place that determined the land ownership. I had a similar but less controversial issue once where my soakaway (5 metres away from my property) was in a neighbour's garden.
If in England & Wales you may be able to benefit from the legislation enacted on 1 July 2011 whereby the responsibility for maintenance of private sewers and lateral drains was transferred to the water company from 1 October 2011. Details here: -
http://www.water.org....er/about-the-transfer
This legislation was not enacted to cover the situation you describe - it was intended to cover where other people's sewers run through your land TO WHICH YOUR OWN SEWAGE also flows.
As far as I can see, you have absolutely no interest in the offending sewer / manhole cover, indeed it shouldn't be on your land. As such the water company should have an easement for it, which I'll bet they don't have - check the restrictions detailed in your Land Title at the Land Registry. If it doesn't appear, that is perhaps your best negotiating lever.

You are correct that the builders are unlikely to want to know after 13 years.

The situation with the estate developers is that that they enter into a legal contract with the water utility / local authority to construct the sewers, roads, street lighting to a specific standard that then gets legally transferred in terms of future maintenance responsibility when the estate is finished. You could try pointing that out to the water company - it is only they that could get recourse from the builders.

But my starting point would be to suggest to the water company that it is their responsibility - the technical stuff is that it is contained in section 42 of the Flood & Water Management Act 2010.

[The Builder]

Chapter & verse from BM there, myhouse. Fascinating stuff. Up to now, the drains on private property were only their responsibility if they had been "adopted" by the Water Company. Their Mapping Office will have drain maps to show what's adopted, and what's not.

So now, it looks as though your position IS within the Water Company's remit.

A possible idea of how your arrangement might have come about ............ in my own garden I have an inspection chamber which carries ONLY next door's soil water....... It came about because, when the development was built, my house was an afterthought! To cut a long story short, the developers found they could find room for one extra house! By then, the infrastructure drainwork, rainwater drains etc, were already in place.
In a perfect world the drains should have been altered. Of course, no one could force them to do the alterations, although, if Planners were a little more vigilant with Planning conditions etc, this needn't happen at all.
That could easily be your situation.

[myhouse]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've checked the deeds and there's nothing mentioned about pipework and certainly no mention of an easement (which sounds like kinda good news if it gives me some bargaining power). The company that did the pipe mapping really struggled to understand how or why this set up occurred, but they did say it might have something to do with the fact that the whole close is built on an incline which might have prevented a more conventional set up. It might be like you say that the builders added an extra house or two - particularly as the houses that lead to this drain are 4 or 5 doors away and have to cross a central courtyard to get to my front garden. I'll speak to the planning department and see what they come up with then I'll have a better idea as to what to say to the water company. To my mind the manhole cover needs moving, which looks possible from a layman's perspective. I certainly don't want an ongoing problem from someone else's waste pipe on my front garden.

[gingejbee]

The situation (from October 2011) is that *shared* sewers and lateral drains are now owned by your water company. So, although your soil water doesn't pass through the offending pipes, they are shared - and your water company has the responsibility for eg. unblocking and relaying, if necessary.
So, you may have some hassle but you shouldn't be out-of-pocket.

[bednobs]

i am just a lay person, but will moving the cover make any practical difference to the blocking/tree root situation? In fact, if the tree roots are invading, wouldn't it be better that the water company have access where the problem is, rather than meters away?(this coming, of course, from someone who has never had raw sewerage coming through their lawn!)

[myhouse]

Bednobs, I want the water company to move the entire sewer pipe not just the manhole cover, there's no logical reason for it to be on (or under) my land. The main sewer 'exit' for the bottom end of our close - i.e. where our sewers meet the water companies big sewer system is closer to the houses in question than it is to mine. If its been mapped correctly (and the men were there for several hours so hopefully the did a good job) the pipeline takes a very indirect route to get to the exit point for our end of the close. Its an unnecessary diversion that doesn't need to be in my garden at all. The fact that it is in my garden and is causing a problem is my concern. It won't look good when I come to sell the house if I have someone else's drain causing a problem in the front garden.

I checked about the builders adding in additional houses and sure enough the squeezed in an extra 6 in - 3 semis - so that might explain why the pipework is a mess.