Buying a house with Build over agreement

[Ceth222]

Buying house with Build Over Agreement

I’m in the process of buying a house in the South East of England and the seller has shared a Build Over Agreement they have with the water company.

It shows that there is a sewer running underneath the extension built by the seller in 2019. The agreement approves the extension build, subject to the owner:

“To allow the Company access to the Land and the Building at all reasonable times … for the purpose of cleaning, servicing and repairing the Sewer and for those purposes the right to break up the floors of the Building but only where all other means of accessing the Sewer have been fully considered and that accessing through the floor of the Building is the only practicable means of undertaking the works …”

It also states that we would be required to:
"pay to the Company such costs as it incurs in carrying out the works which includes:
* Any damage caused to the Sewer by the building
* increased difficulty in carrying out works due to the building's existence”


Is this common? Presumably it could be very costly for us if they did require access and needed to break up the floors, never mind the hassle. Is it something we simply get indemnity insurance for?

The posts I’ve found online in relation to this type of thing are where there is no agreement in place, for older extensions. I’ve asked my solicitor for advice too of course but wondering if others have experience with this and how they handled it during a house purchase.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Your solicitor will probably offer you an insurance policy that would cover your costs in the unlikely event of them needing access or it getting damaged.

In reality it's extremely unlikely to happen. In the absolute worst case, a hole dug into a concrete floor is definitely an inconvenience but really isn't the end of the world. Fill it back in, put floor covering back down, done.

Many sewer repairs are done remotely from nearby inspection chambers these days...

You should check the documents for the extension, ensure that there are lintels spanning the sewer so it's not resting on it and all was approved at the time it was built. If so then you shouldn't end up responsible for cracking it.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Pretty standard stuff, the idea behind Buildover agreements is that in order to build over or near them, certain criteria needs to be met eg the condition of the drains, the depth of the foundations, access is retained etc so as to minimise any problems down the line.

 

[johnny2007]

Very common for extensions to be built over sewage pipes.
If work was done properly you'll never suffer any problem.
And as others said, most of work nowadays is done without destroying any internal floor.
Said that, you need to make sure that there's a manhole outside the extension that can be used in case of blockages.
If there's none it could be a problem.
I am at the end of terrace and the shared drains serve 4 properties.
2 of them, the middle ones have concreted over the manhole and that it's not a problem for Thames water because they can clean the whole run from mine.
Around the corner instead there's a 12 property terrace; only 1 property in the middle has retained the manhole, all the others covered it.
Apart from being told off by the TW workers for the extra work they had to put in when unblocking the drain, nobody had to excavate the floors.
Even broken pipes can now be repaired and lined from within the pipe.

 

[^woody^]

The water company has those rights, and the land owner has those obligations whether there is a build over agreement or not.