Private street - left without water drainage by developer

[MrsPS3]

I am posting in AIBU for traffic, as I am desperate for views an ideas.

We live in a private street alongside a small number of other families. The street is owned by the developer who sold the houses. In the street there is a pumping station that needs to be working fine for us to have functioning foul water drainage.The developer maintains and repairs the street and the pumping station, and we have to pay a fair share of the cost.

Right now the pumping station needs to be repaired, but the developer is telling us that he is not going to do that as someone hasn't paid previous charges. We were only made aware of the situation with the pumping station last week through a neighbour. We have been experiencing issues with our drainage since November at least, but we didn't even know that the issues were caused by the pumping station, so we were trying to fix our domestic installation thinking that the problem was there. Some neighbours incurred considerable expense getting a plumber to fix it, for the plumber to say that there was no issue with the internal installation. The developer simply didn't communicate anything to us!

When we were made aware of the situation we complained to the developer as the lack of communication on his side has been ridiculous, there is also a lack of transparency on the charges, there is a management fee whilst things are being mismanaged and no information provided, and we also stated that he has no right to leave us without sanitation if someone else doesn't pay (we showed him that the contract is between us and him, and that if someone else doesn't pay that is between him and that someone). We also told him that yesterday morning our sink wasn't draining at all (for a while), and that he will be responsible for whatever happens next due to him not repairing the installation. We have called the legal advice line from our home insurance and they have confirmed they cannot leave is without sanitation because a third party does not pay.

The developer wrote to us stating that until all the residents pay what is owed, he is not going to fix anything, and that he is not going to respond further. They have also said that their solicitors said they don't have any responsability to fix it until everyone pays everything?? (Which is not the legal advice we got and beggars belief) He is reluctant to be transparent about the charges, and take any responsibility for the lack of communication. His position is totally unreasonable. The rest of the residents are unhappy with how he is behaving, and we try to coordinate ourselves, but we are unsure how to proceed.

We cannot fix the pumping station ourselves as it belongs to him.

Any ideas?

can you get your solicitor to write threatening legal action

or even better organize yourselves and then jointly threaten legal action.

are your houses freehold or leasehold?

involve your MP.

involve the press

Contact your local council environment health and ask them to become involved.
Also contact your local waterboard for advice. Wessex have been brilliant with issues we have faced 're the local pumping station, all be it they own it

Are you in the Uk? Could you have your own cesspit installed?

Do you not have leases that set out the responsibilties of each party (eg you to pay for the pump and him to maintain it). If not it all sounds pretty amateurish. What informarion did you get during the conveyancing process?

He may be right in the fact he needs money from you all in order to pay for the repair but this should be worked out - why is there no repair fund for such an essential piece of shared infrastructure?

Assuming you are in the UK, what does you title deeds say if anything about this?

Houses are freehold but the developer owns the private street, in the UK.

We have involved a councillor, who emailed environment health but no news yet, all very recent, he responded very quickly though.
The money he is reclaiming now is not the money for the repair, is a fee somebody owes from last year (management fee) that is being disputed as we are being charged whatever they want without presenting any invoices or being transparent. We have paid the fee but we have declared we have done it under protest and under duress because we do not agree with it.

Agree, there should be a repair fund for something so basic but he is threatening not doing anything because someody owns money from something unrelated to this specific issue.

Hmm. That sounds bad. If you have a lease for the common areas you have the right to see the accounts.

I would investigate right to manage.

My DH emailed the developer asking for the invoices and he not only didn't send them, he also said he was not going to respond further. It is either everything is paid by evryone without questioning or everyone suffers. I guess he thinks we would all end up putting pressure the neighbour who owes the money to pay, but I actually quite agree with our neighbour.

When we emailed the councillor, we asked if the council could adopt the street, but I am not sure how easy that would be if the developer owns it?

Go to the local paper.

Contact the local BBC News - by us they have a local problems section every week. It's the highlight of my week with some of the petty issues but this would be a good one to see them help with.

Contact the Daily Mail who also have a get help section.

Ask questions on local Facebook pages and groups. Name the management company and innocently ask if anyone has any advice.

Generally kick up a fuss. Also have a look at the governments "Fleece holder" legislation which is pending - lots of good information in the research which informed that:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8497/

People like him really piss me off. We run our block of flats under share of freehold (ie we all own the freehold via company) and are scrupulous about transparency and legal obligations.

My friend recently stopped paying his management fees for the same reason as your neighbour (although he is leasehold, so this might be different)

He has come to sell and they wont hand over the management pack till the arrears are all up to date or he agrees to pay on completion. Its worth keeping in mind for you and your neighbours regarding the fees.

I think the main thing is to get environmental health involved as quickly as possible and if that means you all phoning first thing Monday morning then thats what you should do, the more pressure the better

You need to club together with your neighbours and take the developer to court and enforce your rights in the contract.
Don't engage with the developers further and immediately file a breach of contract notice which should get them taking some action. As you said if the contract is clear between you and the developer then he needs to fix it !