Section 104 (new build drainage/water) help!!!

[Jessuk86]

We are selling our 3 year old new build home built by Linden homes, we were supposed to be moving tomorrow but it's all been held up by our buyers solicitor wanting a section 104 agreement this is an agreement between the developer and water company that is put in place when the development is complete (ours was finished 2017)

I've done lots of research and phone calls to find out the above (I know solicitor should be doing this but we sold with purple bricks so stick using their solicitors and quite frankly he doesn't seem to have a clue as hes been chasing the council and ive since found out they dont hold this info!!!)

Anyway I now know that Linden homes will have this agreement if it's been done and have contacted them about it and I've been given the same answer I've been given too many times over the last 3 years "we'll pass it to our technical team and someone will get back to you" this has not once resulted in a call back so I'm now really worried this could drag on for weeks!! I will be telling the solicitor this is where the info lies so he can chase in the right place too....

BUT my trail of thought now is, is this s104 agreement essential for us to exchange contacts? Has anyone else selling a similar age house had to provide this?
As I am thinking if it's not absolutely essential (the house is new and on an estate and clearly attached to mains drainage has a water meter etc) then could we speak to our buyer who is keen to get in and see if he can advises buyer to drop this enquiry??

Any advice would be much appreciated I'm so gutted I wont be moving this week and now have this fear it may drag on for weeks over something that possibly isn't an essential.

The s104 is where the water company agrees to take on responsibility for the drainage system that the developer has built. If they’ve not got one then the water company have no responsibility if anything goes wrong with a blocked sewer etc and it would fall to the developers, or now the homeowners.

I guess the buyers don’t want to potentially be saddled with an unadopted drainage system they may have to pay to rectify.

It’s likely there is one, but it might take a little time to get it out of the developers. Could you check with the water company instead? It might be quicker.

I called the water company this morning they were the ones who said it is the developers responsibility to provide us with it so this is now the source of my 'realisation disappointment' anything Linden homes deals with takes forever! I might do what DH did to the property management company and call them and refuse to get off the phone until they have the info as otherwise if it drags on another 2 weeks with it being a help to buy property we will have to pay out for another valuation survey (they only last 3 months) and worst case if the values gone up we wont be able to afford the house we are buying as will have to give back more to help to buy arghhh!

Sorry I've gone off subject but it feels good to vent! X

Councils should have a copy of this but they often request a fee to provide it. Your solicitor should have established whether or not the Council have a copy, how much the Council charge to provide it and then request the monies from you to pay for it. Lindon Homes may have it and you may have been supplied with a copy when you purchased, but I would expect that this document would also have been submitted to your local council, who normally keep all the appropriate planning documents, building control etc. While it is possible to download lots of documents from the Council's portal, this is not usually available for free.