Help with property purchase: no planning permission and public sewer

[lulu]

Hello, would really appreciate if anyone has any help or advice to offer on the following situation. We have made an offer on a house. We have found out recently that a) the house is above a public sewer with a manhole in the back garden. We have also found out a chimney breast was removed seemingly without planning permission. This was done prior to the vendors moving in but they can't confirm if planning permission was sought. Should we be concerned?

Bit unsure at the moment

Many thanks

L

[Marmora Man]

a. Planning permission not required for internal work - but usually Building Regulations and approval is needed for any significant structural change that might affect the building's integrity. You could ask for a survey confirming that the chimney breast works have not affected the structure

b. Public sewer - are you sure it's a public sewer and not the waste sewer from the house - which would be quite usual and, usually, helpful to have access to in case of blockages. Most public sewers are very large and run down the main highway, not through the back yards of properties.

[The Minkey]

It's possible to have a shared sewer. My house shares pipes with 3 other properties. My previous house also shared sewer pipes with adjoining properties. All the pipes ran along the backs of the houses then joined up and ran under my neighbours house to meet up with the public sewer pipes. If this sounds like your situation, then you need to find out who bears responsibility should the pipes fail, for example, which sections if any would you share financial responsibility for with your neighbours.

[red devil]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> a. Planning permission not required for internal

> work - but usually Building Regulations and

> approval is needed for any significant structural

> change that might affect the building's integrity.

> You could ask for a survey confirming that the

> chimney breast works have not affected the

> structure

There should be a letter/certificate to say the works met Building Regs approval, if not then you should either ask the vendor to rectify the situation at their cost or get a couple of quotes and reduce your offer accordingly.

>

>

> b. Public sewer - are you sure it's a public sewer

> and not the waste sewer from the house - which

> would be quite usual and, usually, helpful to have

> access to in case of blockages. Most public sewers

> are very large and run down the main highway, not

> through the back yards of properties.

Agree, it sounds like you are confusing a normal domesic drain with a public sewer.

Domestic drains at the back of Victorian houses are common place, either running down a side passage or under the house to the main public sewer in the road.

As TM suggests, you just need to confirm the route and find out if it's shared, and if so who is responsible for blockages/maintenance etc.

[lulu]

Thanks everyone. We have had confirmation that it's definitely a public sewer from Thames water. They are responsible for the access point in the garden. This access point is at least a foot high, I.e. not your usual man hole cover.... Does anyone have anything similar? It is certainly not attractive and takes up quite a large proportion of the already small garden area.

[red devil]

How big is it then?

[lulu]

Roughly 2ft by 2ft guesstimate

[red devil]

Well, if you're successful with your purchase you can get creative with it...how about turning it into a low level table?

Get a purpose made top, nice bit of chunky timber, and sit it on top of the inspection chamber with enough overhang to hide it from general view. The weight should self-support it without the need to fix it down, making it easy to remove should Thames Water need access. I'm sure there are other things you could do to lessen it's impact...

[JMT]

A lot of these rear sewage pipes got adopted as public sewers in October last year so many of you may now find you have public sewers in your garden. They say it is so that they can take responsibility for maintaining them, but with a fee for connecting to an existing sewer and a separate fee for building within 3 metres of an existing sewer, I suspect Thames Water just saw the opportunity to capitalise on the increased trend in house extensions.

http://www.thameswater.co.uk/got-a-problem/8654.htm

Depending on the invert level of the sewer, you could drop the access point down - to the approval of Thames Water, of course.

I agree with red devil re: the chimney breast. The vendors should be responsible for providing the Building Control Certificate for the works done. Planning permission is not usually required.

[AbDabs]

Any sewer (a pipe carrying drainage from more than one property) that runs under your property and was built before 1937 was designated a 'public sewer' by the Public Health act of 1936. The latest Act simply brings in the sewers built after that date (known as private sewers, as described by The Minkey above), which effectively clarifies matters regarding those sewers that were not recorded on the official sewer maps (previously you only had to notify the authority if you made changes or works close to a sewer that was recorded on the official map, so a lot of builders chose to assume the pipe was a private sewer rather than let anybody know!).

There are masses of properties in ED that have public sewers running under their gardens, and plenty with the sewer running right under the house.

There may be a fee for building within 3 metres of a sewer but Thames water are taking on a heck of a risk if you build over one - it's an awful lot more expensive to repair a pipe under a house than one that can easily be dug up in a flowerbed. The only real benefit to TW from this legislation is the time they save not having to work out if the sewer is a private or a public one when it fails.

Re the chimney breast; is it on a party wall?