To get neighbours septic tank off my land?!

[Ladyoftheapple]

My neighbours septic tank is in our back garden.
It is all a bit odd but basically before we moved in, the prior owner owned both houses.
Anyway, we recently replaced the manhole cover on top as it was quite corroded but in doing so could see that their septic tank was pretty full with poo (its comings probably about 100cm from the top). About a month ago we spoke to the neighbour to say it needed emptying. He also said he wanted to look as he doesn’t feel like he’s seen it before 😳 since then, he has not done anything about it. We have messaged since and he said he forgot and he will come around and look on the weekend which he did not.

As this is on our land and no benefit to us other than the hassle of asking him to empty it which he is yet to do!! Would it be wrong to get him to sort his own on his land?! Is this even possible?! I have young children running around in our garden. He had it emptied once when he moved in which was about 5 years ago 😳

Just get the tank emptied and send the neighbour the bill. If he doesn't pay, take him to the small claims court.

Don't do this
If its not causing a problem the owner is under no obligation to empty it.

From the information you've given it's impossible to tell if there is a problem or with whom it lies.

Is your neighbour being clueless about having bought a house with a septic tank and is therefore ignoring the overdue management they actually need to do?

Or are you uninformed and squeamish about a perfectly functional septic system that poses no harm whatsoever to anyone, and should perhaps not have bought this house if it was going to bother you?

Op, you CANNOT do this.

@Ladyoftheapple Why do you think it needs emptying at all? Round here if your septic tank starts smelling you check the pipes aren’t blocked and chuck a bit of gone off liver in to boost the bacteria, otherwise you ignore it and save money on sewerage.

Ignore this advice it's very flawed.

My neighbour only needed to empty his septic tank on one occasion between 1956 and 2019 (and then it was only because one of his children threw something down the loo that they shouldn't have done). The previous owners of my own house didn't empty the tank at any point in their thirty five year ownership. I have emptied the tank because I arrived to the it a novice and was a bleach freak so I bleached all the effective bacteria out of existence and then the tank filled up. It doesn't sound as though there's anything wrong with your neighbour's tank. Only ask about emptying if you see that the ground around the lid is mushy. The other concern would be if the tank backs up into his own house but then he'd be the one calling someone in to help. Occasional earthy smells are quite normal in certain wind conditions and nothing to be alarmed about. Legally it sounds as though you don't have a leg to stand on so the best thing to do is to learn to live with it on your land. Current installation regulations may well mean that the tank can't be moved nearer to your neighbour's own house and even if it could be moved, the disruption and/ or expense are likely to be huge.

Before kicking up a fuss, make sure your own tank meets the latest regulations. Weve just put in a new imhoff tank, and it cost ten grand to do it to new EU regulations. We're not in the UK though. We were told most tanks fail to meet the laws, but go largely undetected.

Err thats not a septic tank!

Its also not necessarily true that cesspits dont have a type of drain field, mine cesspit was built in the 1920s
Its a large concrete chamber, with a lower wall inside, the liquids flow over the wall, that small chamber then drains into a soak away.

Its very efficient and needs emptying maybe every 10 years or so but very important no oils get into it, they seal off the surface and prevent the natural gasses escaping as bacteria does it stuff.

The house etc was built by my Great Grandfather & was a common way of dealing with off mains sewage before plastics and large waste tankers.

Well that's an utterly daft piece of advice. The amount of people commenting on here when they clearly have no idea how septic tanks work is crazy.

I obviously can't comment on what the previous poster has but we definitely have a septic tank that is a very similar setup to this - was installed in the late forties, way before fibreglass tanks, we don't have a firebreglass tube. It's very efficient but when we moved we had a couple companies survey it because it was all an unknown to us and it's not a cesspit, its a septic tank system, just an old one.

This

Should the man hole cover not be your neighbours responsibility to replace?
Not really fair for you to pay for this.

Tell them to do fewer poos.

OP please ignore this, it's ridiculous advice.

Get proper legal advice.

And say what?

What makes you think it needs emptying?

Well you bought it knowing this, so it doesn’t seem like a situation where you can easily get it off, this probably should have been a pre buy discussion. But a meter off the top is nothing to worry about and emptied 5 years ago, is pretty standard especially as there’s no problem.

Our septic tank has never needed emptying in 20+ years.
Our neighbour got hers emptied just before she moved out - didn't needed it but they wanted the new owners to have a fresh start

We do sometimes uses bit of bleach (rarely) . It never smells.

My septic tank is shared with neighbour and is on their land (it was originally one property). We’re very careful what goes in, and for 2 households, 6 people altogether, it needs emptying every few years, I think maybe 5 years since the last empty. We share the cost - neighbour pays and we reimburse them. Is it smelling or overflowing? You’d be talking megabucks to move it - which might not even be allowed.

A secondary point, and apologies for sounding like a pedant:

A septic tank does not need regular emptying, because it's designed to separate solids and fluids, via different chambers and a soak away (clean water comes out).

A cess pit is just a tank in the ground, that fills up and then needs emptying.

We have the latter, and I empty it every summer. My least favourite job; I live on a farm and have my own tanker.

Both should be designed / size to suit the building they serve. Also, the top should be safe and well maintained.

Hope helpful. Happy to answer any questions!

Yes but obviously there’s costs to maintaining the system and at some point you will need new tanks etc. I have a private water supply so save about £400 a year after buying all the filters etc. At some point I’m going to need a 10- 15k bore hole though. I think there’s something to be said for regular payments rather than occasional large expenditure.

Ours was a septic tank, as were those of all our neighbours and to be honest, it sounds as if that's what yours is too. They were installed, one for each of 8 cottages which had previously been serviced by one communal cesspit. We dealt with ours for 30 odd years and got to know it very well. It had three chambers but they were arranged in a line, each one lower than the one before. The final one in the chain was what ran out into the soakaway. We lived on a river bank and the water table was obviously quite high there so no massively deep digging was possible. This design of tank was used throughout our local low lying area. It sounds as if what you are describing works exactly the same way as ours did, so I think it is a septic tank. It's recommended that actual cess pits are emptied every few months. I have just checked the definition and a cess pit is "a holding pit that can't discharge". "A cesspit does not have an outlet, a septic tank does" is another definition. so I think what your great grandfather installed was a septic tank of a more basic design, like ours was.

It doesn’t sound like it needs emptying. Ours has been emptied once in 10 years and that’s only because it started smelling. But it turned out to be a cracked pipe so it actually didn’t even need emptying. Just leave it alone. It doesn’t sound like you actually know much about septic tanks

I am currently experiencing the joy of selling a house with a septic tank which is on a neighbouring property.

As part of this process, I have had to read a document called "General binding rules_ small sewage discharge to the ground - GOV.PDF". It should be somewhere on gov.uk. It outlines the rules which must be followed for septic tanks. Hopefully, this will give you some strong language to help you communicate your neighbours' obligations in terms of maintaining their septic tanks.