Build over agreement help

[december2020]

The searches are coming back on a house we are in the process of buying and there is a sewer running across the land with an extension built on top of it.

The build over agreement has some heavy stipulations like we're not allowed to build any further structures or plant any trees, can't make any claims against the water/sewage company and to pay them any additional costs to repair, maintain, replace the pipes, reimburse them of any claims someone has against them wholly or in part of or as a consequence of the extension and paying them for any damage to the pipes.

This is a totally new realm for me and I'd love to hear any experiences or if anyone has been in a similar situation or lives in a property with a build over agreement.

Is this a fairly common agreement?
Should we consider pulling out?

A hopeful bump

This is a bit odd. (To me!) Mains sewers are usually in the street. The pipes on your land are yours. I’m not sure why the water company would maintain pipes on your land anyway. Usually you are responsible up to your boundary. The water co takes over on highway land outside your boundary. We have pipes under our house. We have private sewage as no public sewage in the village. However we expect to be fully responsible for our pipes. So I’m wondering who owns the pipes? Where is the extension in relation to the highway land?

I think the water company owns the pipes (I've attached the public sewer and water map).

My understanding of a Build Over Agreement is that it enables the water company to have access to service the pipes they're legally obliged to but they can't knock anything down and have to repair any damage caused.

However this agreement seems to absolve them of all that.

Even looking at the pipe direction, I'm not sure there is a way to divert them which complies with the 45 degree angle requirements.

Is something like this normal ?

So these are pipes are sewage pipes serving other houses where their sewer pipes don’t join the sewer in the road? What you do really depends on how much you want the house I guess. Not sure this would suit me. I’m assuming it’s some distance to the road and the builders took the easy straight route under several properties. I’m not sure that’s normal but it’s expedient. Presumably it was agreed when the houses were built. The other houses have pipes under garden except the one you are looking. Depends if you want the risk but I agree a diversion looks difficult.

I'm not sure how many houses are connected to that public sewer pipe - but correct, it looks like whenever the network was constructed they opted for the easy option across.

The house we're looking at has an extension built over the pipe (with Build Over Agreement) but with what seems like heavy stipulations (have posed all my questions to the conveyancer).

I'm just not sure how common something like this is and if it's something we should consider walking away from.

Op, what did you decide in the end?

We bought the house!

We had something similar where we wanted to build an extension and it said there was a sewer in the garden but there wasn't. Had to speak to Thames water and get it cleared and changed on the plans I think.

We had it in two properties, so based on that it’s not unusual.