Who should pay?

[Griddera]

I'll keep it short! I'm in the early process of buying a house, it was on for £900k, I offered £880k which was accepted.

During investigations, it's been highlighted that the septic tank at the house does not meet current regulations (I paid for an independent survey) and I've had 3 quotes for installing a new system, the cheapest of the 3 quotes is £21,000.

In your opinion:

1. I, the buyer, should continue and pay for a new system after moving in
2. The seller should reduce price by £21,000
3. The seller should upgrade the system prior to buyer moving in
4. The buyer and seller split cost 50/50

Appreciate thoughts!

They need to get it up to standard IMO.

This is such a headache

relocating/replacing the tank is not remotely a headache. Installing a whole new sewage system is, and that’s nothing to do with the reg changes.

you need to explain further or have the contractor explain exactly why a whole new 21 grand system is required.

it’s like saying my boiler needs replacing as no longer legally compliant, the cost of the boiler is 3 grand, , but I’m going to install all new radiators and pipe work throughout the house and it’s going to cost be 20 grand. The question would also be why exactly would you do that.

if there is nothing wrong with the sewage system and it’s just tank move/replace and you were trying to get me to pay for a whole new sewage system I’d refuse to sell to you

This is what my solicitor advised too; I'd much prefer for them to get it sorted and just continue to pay the agreed price!

We had exactly this situation. We made the sellers pay. Actually what really happened was the sellers paid half and our buyers paid us extra for our house, equivalent to half the cost. We couldn't afford to pay any of it and would have pulled out if the cost wasn't covered somehow by others. Some people commenting don't understand that it is illegal not to comply with current regs, it isn't just that you will have an out dated system that may be sub-optimal.
I would ask the sellers to pay but if they really wont then think about compromising, if you can afford to contribute to the cost. It is a much smaller percentage your sale price than ours.
PS £21k sounds expensive. Ours was, I think, £13k, 3 years ago. It us a particularly large house?

They need to sort it out or pull out and find something else .

What are you talking about? Moving the tank away from waterway/upgrading brings it up to “standard” or more accurately meets the new regulations.

During investigations, it's been highlighted that the septic tank at the house does not meet current regulations (I paid for an independent survey) and I've had 3 quotes for installing a new system, the cheapest of the 3 quotes is £21,000.

this is where you went wrong, you should have asked for quotes for the tank to be moved/replaced so it was compliant. That cost would be 4 to 5 grand max. It’s a quick and not overly expensive and very standard job.

Asking for quotes for installing a new system is not required as nothing in the survey has said it needs replacing and it would be very unusual if it did.

It wasn’t the law three years ago and there is no way it would cost that. I’m sitting looking at two quotes now for the exact same issue and it’s a tank for a much bigger property. ( very large house split in two)

They're going to have this issue with any other buyer. I doubt you need full replacement drains leading to the tank, just the tank and beyond need replacing.
I would flag this up with the estate agent. My understanding is a new system is only required when the end discharged into a ditch or other watercourse. If it all soaks away in what they call a drainage field then it's still legal

Nah they're trying to sell a house without a working sewerage removal system. The asking price should have reflected this.

Well there's your answer: if you cannot afford to replace it at £21k you drop your offer by that amount on the basis that's the only way you can proceed. If they won't agree, walk away.

When we brought our house we were told there was a septic tank but they didn't know where it was. There wasn't, at all (won't even go into where the sewage was going!). Mortgage wasn't a problem at all and wasn't even mentioned. We've just had a new treatment plant installed (literally just finished it this weekend) for a four bedroom house and it cost about 7k, we did install it ourselves though, including all the pipe work. 21k seems like a lot! The tanks themselves only cost about 3k... We've just had to absorb the cost but 50/50 would have been reasonable to me

We are a drainage company, and are doing a lot of these. The property should be perfectly mortgageable, and on the whole work is done and paid for by the new owners at their leisure. Maybe with a contribution from vendors but not always.

This is my understanding so could it be rerouted to a drain field.
There are a number of get out clauses in the new legislation and the only way is to read it all.
i think it’s worth looking into further.
If you own a house with a septic tank you really need to know exactly what you’ve got so you are not ripped off and you understand how it works.
if you did replace it it would probably be about £10k

That's really helpful thank you! Oh gawd, where was the waste going?!

That's very reassuring. I could definitely look pay around that cost in 6 months. I wonder why the quotes to bring the system "up to spec" have all come in so high?

My solicitor has put the fear of god in me taking about £100k fines! DH I'd ready to pull out but I think there's a solution.

Because the quotes aren’t to bring it up to spec, there is no such thing anyway it just needs to comply with the regs, the quotes are for a whole new system.

*DH is, not I'd.

I would back out completely.

Two previous buyers dropped out, I wonder if this was why!

We had this exact issue when we moved (we were the seller). Our solicitor explained that we could not legally sell the property without it either being sorted or a concrete plan for it to be rectified in place.

As our buyer wanted to move quickly, we arranged for it to be done after completion, paid the deposit and reduced the price for the remaining amount.

So, to summarise, as the seller we HAD to pay for this (although the buyer actually arranged the timing of it being fitted).

We also had this issue, we would ideally have asked the vendors to do the work, but were on a tight deadline to move in so we reduced our offer by the quote amount and they agreed. We would have pulled out if they hadn't. As a pp said, a lot of people commenting here don't understand that this is very different to other things that might be flagged on a survey, and does carry real legal/financial risks if you don't do it. We were advised that as long as we swiftly progressed the replacement, the EA wouldn't be interested (our solicitor spoke to them). For reference, our sewage treatment plant was 12.5k for a 12 person tank, but we had quotes of up to 28k, so shop around.

It's not just reposition, you have to replace the septic tank with a 'mini sewage plant' which actively treats the water rather than letting the bacteria in the septic tank do it.

With this in mind- no.2

Thank you for your post! How did you arrive at the amount to be taken 'off' the price - did you source quotes or did your buyer? I really feel for our seller it's not that I want to knock money off for the sake of it! I really like our sellers and I don't want to sour things.

Have you called a drainage firm in to actually survey it? Because if it is working the rush is lessened. 6 monthly empties with 3 adults isn't too bad, sounds like a fairly small tank at present but working.

We have found that purchasers tend to not have an issue legally provided the system is working and they have proof of plans to change it within a reasonable time frame.

For example, it may be that a percolation test shows you could just install a drainage field, which is much cheaper.