Advisable to buy house with services shared with neighbouring property?

[estebancolberto]

We are buying a 3 bed terraced house. It was originally a semi detached house and later added a side extension. So now the terraced house is sold to us and the side extension will be rented out as a separate property by the same seller. When we did the drainage survey we found that the waste pipes and manholes for our terraced house are located under this extension property. We have instructed our solicitor to add clauses in the contract and property title deeds on both properties that we will have access to maintain and work on these services and waste pipes. Is this setup something that is acceptable? Will this cause issues in future maintenance and resale potential/value of this terraced house?

It is ok until something goes wrong and then you need access etc and whatever deeds say, relying on them means court.

is there inspection hatches within the property or purely they pass underneath?

I wouldn't rule it out but would be very cautious and my preference would be avoid

What does your solicitor say? How does the seller expect you to undertake repairs, pull up the floors of the rental property?

I know when we did our rear extension, we had to relocate the piping and inspection cover to outside the extension and do a survey to prove to the Water company that we had indeed relocated our pipes and they were not in the place of where the extension would be.

Was planning permission given to build over services? Is there a condition that extension can’t be separate dwelling - just wondering. I’m no expert.

Personally it’d be a no go for me. The whole set up sounds wrong, I wouldn’t want to own a property next to the person I bought off.

If sewers are shared they become the responsibility of the water company

Have a look at this link, was there a build over agreement? https://www.timms-law.com/conveyancing-what-is-a-build-over-agreement/

either way your solicitor should be advising.

This sounds like a very unconventional
set up, what does your solicitor say?

But the water company will have had to agree this, in a sense sent a letter to say they’re happy for the building to be built over the sewers. Even if they did I’d not want this issue.

The water company should have been consulted when the building control application was submitted
it will depend when the extension was built

I don't think this is automatically the case - we have a shared septic tank and it's certainly not the responsibility of the water company!!

It sounds too complicated, I would find somewhere else tbh without this unconventional setup

@110APiccadilly A septic tank is private drainage. Never anything to do with the water company as it’s not mains drainage. I would never ever share one though! Money well spent to get your own.

As a rule of thumb, mains drainage/sewage pipes are water authority, pipes going into your house from the mains drainage pipe is your responsibility. So if it’s in your property pipes are usually yours and your responsibility.

As for this set up: no. This terrace house is vulnerable and the pipes should have been moved. Would not matter if one owner owned both sections snd permission was given. In this case, if anything goes wrong under the other property, it’s going to be very difficult to sort it out. The pipes should ideally be diverted into the garden and then connect with the sewer.

Even before I worry about the drains I'd be wanting to know if the side extension has permission to be used as a separate dwelling. I can see it being fine with something like a barn conversion with lots of space around it, but it sounds highly irregular in a row of terraces. Is it properly soundproofed or are you going to hear every spit and cough inside your house?

Is the property and price really worth all these grey areas and unknowns? I would pass on this property and tell them clearly why in writing (make it easier for the next buyer if they need to sue that seller or EA).

I'd want to be getting one hell of a bargain to put up with all the potential issues that come with this property. It will obviously be a lot less valuable than all the other houses on the street as the plot and garden is presumably much smaller and the other nearby houses would be semis.

The fact that the extension wasn't originally built to be a separate dwelling would raise all sorts of questions about firestopping and soundproofing without even thinking about the drains.

Land Registry can register it as two dwellings. Both with front doors etc. You just provide plans and register. A neighbour did exactly this. It turned my friends house into an end of terrace. It was a semi!!! I’d really avoid this house.

Avoid anything shared