Shared private sewer question

[pse]

X-No-archive: yes

I own a (post 1937) house with a parking area nearby. There is a drain (strictly a grid or gully) on a part of the parking area that I own. My neighbours A and B also own sections of the parking area, and it is sloped so that their surface rainwater runs off into my gully. It looks like the sewer between my gully and an inspection chamber on A's land has collapsed, so that water no longer flows from the gully to the chamber. This results in periodis flooding around the gully.

To complicate matters, neighbours C, D and E feed some of their rainwater into a sewer that emerges in my gully.

I don't think there are any specific items in the deeds about maintenance, so am I correct in thinking that I am jointly liable with all of my neighbours, or possibly just C, D and E (Because although A and B's surface water feeds, they don't actually have pipes that feed into the broken pipe ).

The council are aware of the situation but I'm not sure whether they will try to intervene. I'm planning to talk to neighbour A and B, and then C, D and E. I'm also thinking about informing my insurance company and getting a CCTV survey done. Are there things I should be looking out for?

What are my chances of everybody to contributing to repairs? Does the presence of the gully on my land give me any special responsibility? Do we need to get things done quickly in order to prevent our insurance companies from refusing to pay?

Thanks

[Michael Mcneil]

This sounds more like one for uk.legal. I imagine if stuff from other people's property is causing you a problem they are in part responsible. I doubt they will be very helpful though. Is it in your power to awkward about things else? Blocking certain parts of the manhole for instance, so that a more selective back up problem is widely shared.

You'd have to be clever about that. Or brazunly insist that stopping their access to the rest of the sewer allows what is in there at the moment to drain away thank you all very much for your concern sort of thing.

(You might bear in mind that a youth in my locality is in intensive care after squabbling with his friend. The father of the friend intervened with a machette and hit him on the bonce. That was over #7.50. I think he will lose a bit more than that not being able to work due to being in prison for the next 10 years.)

DAMNED BLOODY AMERICAN EFFING PROGRAMMING! Where is my pound sign???!!!

[Demetrius Zeluff]

"Michael Mcneil" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

It should be shift-3. Are you using an UK keyboard, and is your OS setup to us a UK keyboard?

If you're using a US keyboard the £ might be over on the right somewhere.

[Terry D]

All of the soil drains on my side of a cul-de-sac end up in a manhole on next door's drive (7 houses including mine). The drain has blocked three or four several times in the last fifteen years. I have always taken responsiblity for clearing the blockage, which is between this manhole and the main sewer (mainly because nobody else seemed to be interested even though some of their manholes were also backed up). In one instance, I called around all the neighbours on my side and asked for a contribution to the cost of clearing the blockage, which I received. Last time I did it myself with the aid of a pressure washer and a suitable attachment, but I didn't ask for any contribution to the cost. The most annoying aspect is that I have never received any thanks for sorting out the problems, but unfortunately it's not in my interest to let them stew in their own sewage!

Your problem depends on the location of the blockage/damage. You could try having a camera survey to establish the location of the blockage. It's fortunate that your problem doesn't involve soil drains, which would be a health hazard.

As for your # instead of the £ symbol - go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Keyboard. Select 'Language' and make sure it's set to English (UK). You may neeed your Windows CD or to access your CAB files to do this.

Terry D.

[Lobster]

ISTR a TV programme a year a so back where the camera followed a hapless council employee up and down the street as she endeavoured to persuade all the residents to agree to clubbing together to pay for drain or sewer repairs in a similar situation... maybe worth pursuing that route? Perhaps it only works if ABCD and E won't play ball with you, I don't know.

David

[Lurch]

On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 09:22:31 GMT, "Lobster" strung together this:

I remember that one. She was only doing it because no-one else on the street could be bothered and ISTR that everyone thought it was her fault that the drains were blocked and that the council were trying to extort more money from them before they fixed it. Obviously depends how freindly your neighbours are.

[Terry D]

After shelling out to the council to have the drains unblocked, I went round all the neighbours with an assistant - next door neighbour's daughter, who can be extemely persuasive - she even frightens me :-) They all contributed without a murmur.

Terry D.