Anyone managed to sell their house without mapped drains?

[Pleasebeaflesbite]

To cut quite a long story short I have discovered that my house, which is 250 years old, does not access the sewer that water company thought it did. In fact, the water company are not able to work out where my sewage and surface water is going. They have mapped it out to a neighbour’s garden but are unable to work out where it goes from there.

The suggestion from the water company is that my sewage and surface water ends up in that garden and somehow runs off, which is a ridiculous suggestion as the garden would have been a mushy pit of raw sewage for many years now.

However I am at an impasse with the water company and the suggestion is that I take action myself to re-divert my drains and out into the original sewer that I thought I was using. This will cost me ££££s.

I also need a private company for this and they are not keen on giving me any other cost saving suggestions as it is a nice project for them.

I wondered if there were any other sellers who had sold their houses where these were not mapped to a sewer and whether this had caused you any issues, particularly on an old house where buyers are more likely to carry out a survey to cover off things like the drains?

Thank you in advance

Pretty normal really. Searches for buyers come back - show the main utility company pipes, but not the private, or back of terrace shared ones.

Thanks @Rollercoaster1920. Do you work in conveyancing? They have mapped my drain to the edge of my garden but no further

No, but currently mapping our drains with the neighbours to plan building work. None of us have any plans of utility runs on our property.

My parents owned an old semi-detached cottage and next door shared their drain apparently. Not sure that helps you, but is the neighbour's house also a period property? If it is then maybe you are sharing their drain leading out to the main drain.

If your sewer goes to another garden, then that could be the end of your responsibility. Your waste in a drain on someone else's land becomes a water company drain IF IT ROUTES TO A PUBLIC SEWER. See the diagrams here:
www.ofwat.gov.uk/nonhouseholds/supply-and-standards/responsibility-supply-pipes/

The only other option is that next door might have a cess pit or septic tank that you share. You need to know because then there are responsibilities that go with that.

I presume you are talking with your neighbour?

Can you pay for a CCTV survey, should cost about £200. That will show you where the pipes go.

Thanks for the input above.

@Rollercoaster1920 The link you have sent me is interesting. The problem that I have is that whilst my drain definitely goes into a neighbours property via another neighbour’s, there is no evidence that anyone else is using it from those properties. The properties are much more recently built than mine and were built on the original land of my house. Their drains and surface water go into the sewer I thought I was originally using, if that makes sense.

So the water company have been able to wash their hands of this (no pun intended ) as even though the drain is not on my land anymore it’s only serving my house.

The water company even dug up the neighbours garden in search of where my drain ends up but are refusing to go any further as there is no evidence that anyone else is using the drain. So there’s no way I can get it fully mapped and I was wondering whether this was a problem for selling.

That was the longer story I cut short by the way

Given that the water company are involved you'll have to declare it on your sellers form. A cctv survey with positioning is needed. You might have a broken pipe depositing your waste water into the neighbour's land. Gross, but more importantly could be costly if it causes subsidence.