Please can someone help/provide advice regarding a dispute between homeowners and a sewage management company?!
The company are charging us all an extortionate amount and are also demanding that each homeowner pays the arrears on their account (£4000 each!).
In our Deed of Conveyance, Schedule 3, Point 8 and Clause 3 of the First Schedule: Grant the right to use the Council’s sewage disposal plant until connection to the mains drainage, with associated costs determined by the Council.
As I read this, our legal obligations are to the “Council”, who no longer manage the plant. When the new company took responsibility, should they have contacted residents with an addendum to our deed of conveyance? Should this addendum should have been signed by all parties?!
When I raised this with the company, they stated that they are the legal successor in title to the Council, following the stock transfer which took place in 2000. This apparently means that the company has inherited the rights and responsibilities previously held by the Council in relation to the sewage treatment plant.
They tried to explain that this succession operates in the same legal manner as your ownership of the property, which follows from the original purchaser. As such, the rights and obligations outlined in the original deed continue to apply, and no additional addendum to the deed of conveyance is required to validate the company’s position.
But we signed documents when we moved in?!
I’m truly clutching at straws. The situation is very complicated and includes a lot more disputes and MP intervention. But I’m hoping legally I might have a leg to stand on?!
Thank you in advance!