Neighbours using my drain

[Sunshine32]

If you've personally experienced this or you know the law around it, I'd love to hear from you as i'm losing my mind!

I live in a terraced property. In 2008, next door neighbour was granted planning permission for rear single storey extension. Old party wall was taken down, new one put up and my outside toilet which was adjoined to the party wall took a bit of a beating but the builders put it back together and on life went.

Roll around to now. We've been having rats in the attic so we've been on the hunt for how they're getting in. Found out they mostly come up through broken or redundant drains. So off I went checking out all the drains. What I've found has floored me. My next door neighbour has connected their waste pipe into my private waste pipe for my outside toilet. Instead of making their own connection to the shared lateral drain, they've piggybacked what was my private pipe. All this appears to have have been ticked off by the building inspector and I knew nothing about it. I've asked the council to provide all the docs.

I plan to sell my property as soon as I can and I expect the buyers to extend at the back and build their own extension. Everyone else in the street has. I suspect they'll get a full survey including the drains so they'll know if they can extend or not. In theory, the old outside toilet would have been demolished and the old drainage for it would have been removed. That can't happen now as my neighbour has connected to it. I'd have had just one of their drains crossing my boundary instead of the two I now seem to have. The buyers will need to get a build over agreement from the water authority and where there shouldn't have been a problem in putting down foundations, suddenly there is. I fear this is going to affect the resale value of my home.

What do I do?

 

[mrrusty]

Is the connection they have made on your side or their side of the boundary? It's going to make a difference.

 

[Sunshine32]

I can't answer that honestly as there is a concrete floor in the outside toilet which prohibits me from getting eyes on the drain connections. It all makes sense to me now as to why they broke my toilet back then and when I asked what the hell they thought they were doing, they told me they didn't think I wanted my toilet. They broke it on purpose so they would have to replace it and then they could connect it how they wanted to. They made me buy a new toilet! Clearly they have changed the pipework for my toilet but exactly how I don't know.

Would my best course of action be to hire a really good independent drain survey and have them map out the pipework to understand what is going on?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Would my best course of action be to hire a really good independent drain survey and have them map out the pipework to understand what is going on?

That would be a good starting point, knowing precisely what is there..

They are obviously not allowed to just 'tack' their drainage into any of yours, which is truly private, but you need to work out for sure, which are private, which are shared.

 

[Sunshine32]

I can confirm the outside toilet had its own private waste pipe which has always emptied into the shared lateral drain on my land. The house was built with it.

What I'd also like to get information about is if I can bring a case against my neighbour considering the significant amount of time which has elapsed between 2008-2009 when the build happened and now. I read somewhere that after 20 years it would be considered as a normal fixtures and fittings so to speak but 20 years hasn't elapsed yet so I'm hoping to get them to change it.

 

[Sunshine32]

They have turned my private drain into a shared drain without my knowledge or permission. So what are my rights now? Because if this means a build over agreement would not be authorised because of this now being a shared drain, that affects the value of my home. And I just cannot have that.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I read somewhere that after 20 years it would be considered as a normal fixtures and fittings so to speak but 20 years hasn't elapsed yet so I'm hoping to get them to change it.

Best let them know, that you recently discovered they had trespassed with their installation of drainage, making use of your private drains, and that you require them to rectify the situation within say 3 months. Best done in writing, dated, and retaining a copy of the letter. It might be best to hand the letter over in person, and include a quiet word of explanation. The owner, may well not be aware, what the builder did.. You don't need to explain why you want it moved. It is your property, your drain, for your sole use.

 

[Mottie]

Block it up on your side.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Block it up on your side.

That's hardly helpful is it?

 

[Mottie]

That's hardly helpful is it?

Very helpful I’d say. What will the neighbour have to do when it’s blocked?

 

[Sunshine32]

Very helpful I’d say. What will the neighbour have to do when it’s blocked?

But what will I do when their waste empties out under my house? Trust me, I'm so angry I have thought about it but I won't win this by losing my temper and doing something stupid.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Very helpful I’d say. What will the neighbour have to do when it’s blocked?

Probably go up the wall don't you think, really what you want when you have an issue like this sort out.

 

[mrrusty]

Let's take a step back. You didn't know about this since 2008-9. I very much doubt a buyers survey will pick this up. It's not particularly something you have to declare when selling (every house I have sold has "don't know" to the questions about crossing services underground - because I was never 100% sure what was there).
Say nowt, sell it and move on. If by some chance it is picked up, I doubt any detriment to house value is more than the hassle and cost you could incur trying to go legal against the neighbour, which after over 15 years would be very challenging!

 

[Sunshine32]

Let's take a step back. You didn't know about this since 2008-9. I very much doubt a buyers survey will pick this up. It's not particularly something you have to declare when selling (every house I have sold has "don't know" to the questions about crossing services underground - because I was never 100% sure what was there).
Say nowt, sell it and move on. If by some chance it is picked up, I doubt any detriment to house value is more than the hassle and cost you could incur trying to go legal against the neighbour, which after over 15 years would be very challenging!

Thanks Rusty. Every time I lift the manhole cover up there is stuff stuck in the drain gully when I know I've not used the toilet as I barely use it other than when I'm caught short in the garden which is like a couple of times a year if that. I end up flushing my toilet to clear it out. I couldn't understand where this stuff was coming from.

I think in the past it didn't matter so much about drain services crossing from one boundary or another because the building regs were different. Have you sold since 2011 when it all changed? People were putting up extensions willy nilly before then and it wasn't mandatory to have the permission of the water authority to build over the drains. Things are different now and if I'm crystal on this, the usage of my drain has changed from private to shared. What this means I think is that where my legal rights over it were 100% mine it now belongs to my water authority and therefore I cannot move it or remove it. Essentially my rights have been removed. So my water authority can refuse the build because I now have two shared drains in two different places belonging to them.

I've looked around the net and seen plenty of this coming up on different forums where buyers pull out of sales or expect the seller to drop the asking price etc because they get cold feet after having the survey. It would be hit and miss at the time of selling unless I try and get it sorted now.

 

[Sunshine32]

I've just taken the manhole cover off and had another look down there. I've flushed my toilet and a long white cotton thread has revealed itself in the drain gully. I've phished it out on the end of a stick. I mean?!? How on earth has that got there? It's either a thread from clothing which points to a washing machine being connected to it or its part of the tail from a tampon and nobody in this house uses those.