Private water supply

[LadyGAgain]

The buying 'saga' continues. Any of you have any advice/experience of buying with a private water supply? If the pipes go are we going to be bankrupt? Should we walk away?
Thanks!

To elaborate (didn't mean to drip-feed) - pipe meets main water pipe (proper supplier) and is pumped up a pipe underground to the property. This is about 400m. Current property owner has all documentation stating the pipes belong to the property. I'm not worried about the water integrity (maybe I should be). I am really worried about what we would do if a pipe leaked or burst. Who would we call? How much would it cost? How quickly would we get repairs? Can we insure against this sort of thing so in the event it happens someone else takes over? Estate agent says they have no idea. I know it's unusual but not completely uncommon.
Please help.
Thanks

Bump. Anyone

Hmm what you actually have by the sounds of things is privately owned pipes rather than a private supply if you are still getting your water from the mains water pipes? I assume there is still a meter of some sort etc?

A private supply to my mind is one where the water is not mains water.

I'm not sure what the exact rules are for domestic purposes but as a farm we have our own pipes feeding off a mains water supply to fill water troughs in fields where there isn't a natural water supply. If anything goes wrong with them (often) we are completely responsible for sorting the problem out ourself. For us this is normally just a case of getting a spade and digging a hole and patching up/ replacing a pipe. Your pipes being part of a domestic supply will hopefully be a bit more robust and frost protected than ours are though.

A private supply normally refers to one from a well or private (not water company )borehole rather than from a water main.

Thank you for your replies. I likely have used the wrong terminology . The pipes run up from the main water supply starting at the boundary so the pipes 'belong' to the property. Found out today they run under the neighbouring farmers field (permission granted and documented) but is it costly to repair? How likely to become damaged? Totally out of my depth

I think most people are responsible for the pipes that run from the main water pipe to their house if the pipe is on their land (even if that is just 3ft of lawn!) your complicating factor I assume is that the pipes also cross someone else's land, and over quite a distance.

Depending on who your water supplier is the chances are they will try and help you out, after all they don't want numpties possibly contaminating things of causing bigger problems trying to fix it themselves. In your case they would need your neighbour's permission too. It's probably worth checking your buildings insurance but it's likely that it will already include some cover for burst water pipes.

Some info here from United Utilities www.unitedutilities.com/globalassets/documents/pdf/private-leak-repair-scheme-12-17.pdf

When we have had pipes burst in the past (because we are classed as a business we do have to fix it ourselves) we have had to fill in a 'leak allowance form' to request that our bill doesn't include some/all of the leaked water.

Just to say burst pipes are not covered on buildings insurance. The damage that burst pipes do to the buildings and contents around them would be covered but not the repair of the actual burst pipe.

A home emergency policy would cover for burst pipes

Thank you so much for your responses. It's really helped me to be able to ask some further questions!