Buy a hosue with extension over sewer and no build over agreement

[Otty13]

Hi,

We've found out the house we are in the process of buying (1930s semi) has an extension that was built over public foul sewer with no build over agreement. (The extension was done in 2019 by the previous owners and is about 5 meters wide). They did get building regs certificate for the extension but for some reason didn't get a build over agreement.

The is a manhole in the garden on one side of the extension. Not sure if there is one on the other side in the neighbour's garden. - from the searches it looks like the public sewer stops at the end of our garden.

The sellers solicitor has offered an indemnity policy for this but we are a bit worried and wondering if we should go forward with the purchase.

We've heard that if the water company is made aware of the issue the insurance would be void so we are a bit worried that it could impact us when we want to sell and worried to be liable for issues as well in case the insurance wouldn't pay.

The extension is an open plan kitchen-living room so if they ever needed to dig things up that would be not ideal at all.

I've seen people recommending getting a CCTV inspection of the pipes? Would that be something useful to do and should we ask the seller to pay for that?

Could we ask for the general price of the house to be reduced? The kitchen extension was a big selling point of the house and why we went over asking price but we had no ideas about the issues and the water company having the right to dig up the kitchen or ask for the extension to be tore down.

Hell no. Walk away OP.

An inspection of the pipes only confirms their current state, not what could potentially happen in the future. The risks are too high.

No, I wouldn’t buy this. Indemnity insurance for this issue wouldn’t be good enough. The water company would have the right to access the manhole, if that means going through your extension then that’s what it is.

I mean, you could ask for a big reduction in price if you are willing to go through what might be a massive ballache at some point down the line, but I am not sure that any amount of reduction now would compensate for the horrors you may have to face if something goes wrong with the sewer later on.

One of my mil neighbours had an extension over the public sewers.
Lived there for 5 years before the water board found out. (Previous owners
built it.) Indemnity insurance was taken out which was not worth the paper
it was written on.
Lots of questions and problems in the end it was torn down. As couldn't sell the house.

Walk away. The stress is not worth the hassle.

What cover does the indemnity provide?

Indemnity policies are generally pretty worthless. They will cover your legal costs if any enforcement action is taken against you. However they won’t cover anything else, such as the drop in value of the house if you were forced to demolish the extension.

In your position OP I’d be asking the vendor to get a retrospective build over agreement. If they won’t do that I’d pull out.

“If in doubt, don’t.”

I wouldn’t buy the house either

Our solicitor had previously said the indemnity would cover cost linked to any repair due to action from the water company. We have asked for clarification and additional questions about the policy but our solicitor is on holiday until Monday and her colleague hasn't replied to us yet.

A bit unsure about the policy to be fair. It's just frustrating that they wouldn't get build over agreement, and i guess even if they did maybe building over the sewer is not ideal anyway.