Nightmare house

[Abbeym158]

Hi I’m hoping someone can offer some help on this!
We recently bought our first home and moved in around 3/4 months ago we have been doing some renovation works including new bathroom/kitchen and general decorating. Our first issue we found was the internal piping was lead. The incoming main has been replaced with plastic I assume fairly recently and they had connected straight onto lead. We had a survey taken before we went through with the sale and they had said the pipe work where visible is a mixture of copper and MDPE. My first question is can we claim/complain on this as it was not something we were made aware of and it would have been quite obvious for a professional to have recognised they were there!

My second issue is that we have had issues with a blocked toilet, I took the blame for this as we had been toilet training and a few (packs of) wipes may have gone down. We had to have someone come and unblock the drain and didn’t think much of it at the time. This was around 3 weeks after we moved in. Then not two weeks later and being very careful the same thing happened again so I had to have the drains jetting a second time. Then after there was waste flooding my garden about 3 weeks later again I had someone come and asses the issue. We have found there is a hidden manhole which has been tarmaced over, a gully that is part collapsed and an interceptor drain that is also collapsed. The main issue seems to be the manhole which isn’t allowing waste to pass through causing the blockages. This is allowing around about 4 metres of piprwork to get blocked before it’s noticable. I have been quoted around 2K to sort out not including the £500+ I’ve had to spend on jetting/camera surveys/time off work to wait in for drains people to have this done. My question is really do I have a case with making some kind of compensation claim against the previous owners? The house belonged to a lady who lived here for over 40 years, she died and left the house to her 3 children. They rented it out for 6 months then sold it to us so they will have been aware of the issues if the pipe takes 2-3 weeks to get blocked.

I know this was a long post but we are first time homeowners and I’m sick and tired of everything in this house being an issue!

Tia

In short: no. Was it the surveyor who said the visible pipes were copper and MDPE? A homebuyer's or even a structural survey won't go hunting for lead pipe. How did the presence of lead pipe come to light? Anyway, it's very common and not the huge danger to health many people think.

With regard to the drains - with an older house you would have been prudent to have a camera survey of the drains. Not everybody does, but with a single occupant there was quite possibly never a blockage although the gulley, etc were collapsed.

As wowfudge says, don't worry too much about the lead pipes. I had a thread about it not so long ago (our structural survey also said pipes were copper or plastic where visible... Then gave the location of the internal stopcock, which is blatantly, even to my untrained eye, on a lead pipe!) We had the water tested by the water company and the levels of lead were well below the acceptable level. Also, water companies tend to add phosphate (i think it is) to the water to coat the inside of the pipes and prevent lead leaching out into the water. As long as you don't disturb/bash the pipes it's unlikely going to be a problem. We didn't try to complain or make a claim with the surveyors, since it hasn't turned out to be much of a problem, and some quick googling told me we'd probably be unsuccessful anyway.

It’s not so much the lead pipes I worried about I just thought it should of been brought to our attention in the survey. We redone the bathroom and kitchen and that’s when we found the pipes.

As for the drains we are only young and no one in either of our families has bought a house since the 80s so it was never suggested or recommend by anyone to get these checked not even by the estate agents (I gather this is so the sale doesn’t get held up)

The house was rented out to a family of 5 for 6 months before hand so I assume they must have noticed some issues at least! We are only a family of 3 and both work full time so aren’t really using the toilet for most of the day. Given that it takes 2-3 weeks to block up surely they would of had an issue as no waste is actually getting past the buried manhole.

My main argument is that surely an experienced surveyor should have pointed out that there should be a manhole when the drain turns a corner and this should require further investigation. We paid extra for the survey around £400 so assumed we did everything right

We have bought and sold house over the past 20 odd years and the only thing we have really really always been annoyed about apart from estate agents... what is the point? Are surveyors 13 years ago we bought a house no issue on survey until we came to sell and I found that the mortgage company had totally ignored my instructions for a buyers survey it was a freaking nightmare and we ended up selling at a massive loss. But when we bought this house last year again I noticed the lack of a buyers survey or even the in-depth one which I had requested before we exchanged I challenged the mortgage company and they said there was no point on properties over 40 years old!
And I agree they don't actually do anything it is the perfect job earn loads for a professional opinion and just not bother to really look.
So no you won't have any come back because they cover their arses

Have you looked at what they have said about the drains. They will normally say ok from what they can see, needs proper inspection to know more etc. And that is downto you. Most people don’t check every single aspect of the house before buying it would be too costly. You just have to take the risk

Are you still using any wipes in the toilet? Even a few will block up a loo fast.

I've never had a survey done, beyond the mortgagee's valuation, as I never thought there was much point. And never had a problem with the 4 houses bought. You've just been very unlucky. Is it covered under insurance, maybe?

Did the survey mention drains at all? If nothing was said maybe you'd have comeback, but IME the surveys always say to have them inspected, thus covering the surveyor's arse. The lead pipes - I wouldn't worry about that so much, especially if the incoming main is now plastic.

It's not fun to have issues in a house you've just bought, but older properties can be money pits!

Surveyors always have a reason to wriggle out.

We have just bought a house. We had a specialist boiler survey. 2 weeks in boiler blew up. Cost £5k.

There was a leak from the shower. The owner must have known. Cost £500 to put right. Again, apparently it was up to us to check this.

We had a specialist damp survey that said no damp.. Guess what? Damp. But this will have started since the survey.

The principal of house buying is caveat emptor, buyer beware.

The surveyors cannot possibly test the drains in any meaningful way. The family might have had problems, but the vendors could have sorted it out temporarily before you bought it.

I don’t think surveyors are going to know the exact layout of the drains either so won’t know where they lie under the ground. I think you just have to put this right.

My DD has just bought a flat and the built in fridge has died, ditto the cooker hood and the idiot vendor hadn’t painted the wall behind the tv. These things are very annoying and maybe they should have been checked but they weren’t. Things go wrong but when you are young and a f t b it’s very annoying.

Does your house insurance cover the drains? We had a collapsed drain many years ago and the buildings insurance covered it.

We were going to buy a house but it was valued at zero by the surveyor because the drains were blocked into the street and the garden was collapsing! That was a homebuyers report so they must have had some direction to check the drains. Have a look on your survey. I would never think of getting a separate drains check as standard unless it was recommended on the survey, I don't that's usual at all. So don't beat yourself up! If it was jsut a standard mortgage valuation I wouldn't expect them to check the drains in any meaningful way.

A £400 survey is pretty superficial. Assuming the taps ran and loo flushed he may not even have raised a drain cover. Assessment of pipework would be visual only. Solicitor paperwork should indicate where drains are and how they link into the system. Putting wipes down will easily clog the best of pipes. Your water company may offer a maintenance contract

Check the replies on the property information forms.
I'm thinking there must be an extension built over the manhole- was there building regulations consent, or indemnity insurance?

I’ve not used any wipes at all since and have had the drains completely jetted then they block up again 2-3 weeks later! This can’t be something the previous owners didn’t know about surely! And there is no way they had had them jetted before as there was no evidence what so ever. The man hole has been purposely buried by the owners under layers and layers of tarmac making it in accessable. After speaking to the drainage people they have all said there should be a manhole when the drain turns a corner and it’s pretty obvious the drains turn. It was never mentioned to have the drains checked or look in to it further on the survey

Estate agents wont recommend any checks! That isn't their role at all.

It’s annoying but such is life and hide buying. Old houses have probables and quirks that come to light.

It’s quite possible the drains weren’t getting backed up before.

If you aren’t able to take this in your stride suggest buying a new build with a warranty next time (although even then...!)

I have never bought a house where some issue or other didn't come to light, some expensive, some not, it's all part and parcel of house buying.
We too had a tarmaced over drain. This only came to light when we had an extension built and it was uncovered. We had always wondered where the access was, and rodding had had to be done from a neighbours drain. Our neighbours frequently have to rod their drain, and kindly let us borrow the rods it necessary. It's messy, but not a difficult diy job to do. The previous owners of your house may have done this on a regular basis.
Just one thing though - are you using quilted loo paper? Our drains couldn't cope with it and it blocked them (hence the need for rodding). We only buy thin stuff now.