aibu to expect my neighbours to fix their septic tank

[mollielli]

I live in the countryside, neighbour on one side, who has been a great friend, with a septic tank that empties via a pipe under my garden, worked fine for 10 years, all good. New neighbours dug a hole in their garden and damaged the drain that her septic tank emptied into and now it backs up into my garden. New neighbours say it was obviously damaged before they dug and its not their responsibility. Old neighbour/friend has said.....she had her tank emptied there is nothing left in there/ its only treated water that comes out/ the pipes are on my land so its my responsibility. Now she wont speak to me. Neither neighbours want anything to do with the problem, nor with me now. I tried to get the council environmental health to sort it but they said it wasnt their responsibility either. So Im stuck with a septic tank emptying onto my garden. I want to get a solicitor to write to them and tell them to sort it out but Im afraid it will make matters worse. Help

Have you looked on your deeds to see who has responsibility? I would talk to a solicitor and find out where you stand legally. You could always approach your neighbours again to sort amicably but at least you will have the facts.

often your buildings insurance will include legal cover for situations just like this. it affects the value if your property so has to be sorted out, so consult your insurance. if it turns out to be your responsibility to fix then the insurance may cover it. if it's not your responsibility then the insurance may cover the legal action to make the responsible party pay up?

I'm struggling a bit with how you could make things worse than neither of them speaking to you already? Sounds like the perfect time to get a solicotor to write to the pair of them. At least you already know they wont talk to you afterwards.

Some near neighbours are dealing with this - I believe the water company can enforce they repair it, but they don’t like to get involved. If you don’t want to do the solicitor route maybe make the request to them then follow up with your MP.

Get someone in to put a cut in the pipe and get a valve on it to destrict flow so it backs up
to the persons tank. They’ll soon fix it in a few months when their shits coming back into the house

Insurance said its not my drain or pipe so they wont cover it, they checked my septic tank and said its working fine so they arent responsible, passed that message on to the neighbours, what is worse is that I was really good friends with one of them now she barely speaks

Do your deeds say the pipes are your responsibility, or theirs?

I think your insurance are wrong - you pay them to insure your property. It doesn't matter that it's not your pipe. It's faulty and affecting your property. They need to get it sorted. They do that by contacting the neighbours' insurers and deciding who is responsible between them.

This made my morning.

100% this.

The broken bit of pipe- is it within the section from the house to the septic tank, or between the septic tank and soakaway?

You need to get on to the environmental health team at your local authority.

even though it's on private land there is still enforcement action they can take.

I would let neighbours know this is what you are going to do as you have been unable to resolve it with them without involving the authorities so far.

OP has said they're not interested in helping, unfortunately.

I had a similar issue last year with neighbours shits overflowing onto my property. Environmental Health eventually did an enforcement order so that the property created the waste had to sort it. It did take about 6 months, though.

Get yourself a solicitor, they will check all the deeds, yrs and neighbours as it could be a joint responsibility. We had similar issue, best money I’ve spent as u can’t reason with some people.

I do think you need to get back on to environmental health. They are supposed to take action. Awful they are fobbing you off.

If in England, I’d suggest reporting to the environment agency. Rules changed significantly around septic tanks and not improved enforcement.

www.gov.uk/permits-you-need-for-septic-tanks

Try contacting the Environment Agency, I believe the tank will now be illegal:

www.propertymark.co.uk/professional-standards/consumer-guides/buying-selling-houses/septic-tanks.html

Why on earth can’t the neighbours get their insurance cos to deal with it?

They are being outrageous.

Are they suffering any of the consequences of this problem pipe? A solicitors letter might get them to take action sooner than getting the Environment Agency to act, but I think I would be pushing both. It may be that a meeting with a solicitor gives you information to assist your next letter to the EA.

But don’t tell the EA you have sent a solicitor letter, they might think that is their cue to file your case under ‘pending… eventually’.

When my neighbour‘a cesspit overflowed onto my property, I asked him to fix it and he refused, saying some overflow of water was natural. (It’s not! There was poo coming out onto my land.) I called the council environmental health team and they sent someone out next day. He was told he must fix it within a month or he’d be fined. It is against the law to allow effluent to flow out onto other’s land.

You need to check your deeds to ascertain whether your neighbour has an easement to allow the pipes to cross your property and what it says with respect to maintenance. Our water pipes cross other peoples land and maintenance is our responsibility but we have an easement to allow us to access them.

I think you need to get a bit more forceful with environmental health or potentially the environment agency. Are you near a watercourse? The ‘problem’ is that the pipes over your property are after the septic tank rather than before so it’s the treated product rather than raw sewage meaning that they don’t care as much. Having said that, if it is a septic tank rather than a treatment plant then there are more restrictions on where it can discharge.

Legally, you can’t damage their pipes, even though they cross your land, but practically if some damage were to ‘accidentally’ occur that prevented the tank from discharging so that it did indeed back up with sewage, then they would be incentivised to act very quickly. Alternatively, dependent on where and how it is leaking your could get it channeled to your boundary and onto either neighbours property. If you don’t want to do that, and you can’t get any joy out of environmental health and they won’t speak about it then your only option is a solicitor’s letter. It’s a real nuisance but the owner of the septic tank won’t care because the tank is continuing to work as far as she’s concerned and the new neighbours won’t care because it doesn’t affect them.

we share a septic tank with neighbours and the pipe run across our garden.
it has always been our responsibility to look after the pipe work that run across our land when we have had problems .

I've just re-read it and the discharge onto your land isn't raw sewage but the treated waste from the septic tank.

can understand why environmental health aren't rushing out if that's the case.

would sorting it out yourself cost similar to a solicitors letter/legal action?

They dont have a soakaway they have a pipe and their overflow from the septic tank flows down the pipe, over my garden to a inspection pit, there is then another pipe that flows from that pit to the drain in the neighbours garden. The waste cant get away through that broken drain so now it overflows from the inspection pit.

I agree, I was thinking do something like this. Force the issue.