Drains - legal obligation.

from the point that next doors drain joins yours, it's a public sewer so Thames' problem, if no other house joins the neighbour's drain then that their part is their problem alone.

You also have a near-Victorian car from what I've heard.

Bill

My understanding that any part of a sewer that originates from someone else's property, is the water company's responsibility for any portion of that that is under your property

How about the diagram here :-

I think you need to be more nosy. As you say it's next door's problem, and you need more info. Perhaps lift up a manhole on their side and go though the path of their sewer pipe. I suspect it might be a near symmetrical arrangement as yours?

See the pictures here:

It sounds like your situation is the semidetached on the second picture - your house is the left half, your neighbour is the right half.

OTOH it is sometimes very difficult to persuade Thames Water to attend to their responsibilities, especially if unclear exactly where a blockage is. So sometimes it's simpler to take matters into your own hands, especially if time is of the essence.

Theo

Assuming that just your two houses are connected together, the drain from your house to where the drains join together will be your responsibility and the drain from your neighbour's house to the join will be theirs, with the shared section being Thames Water's problem.

If more than your two houses are connected, then each house's individual drain is their responsibility and the whole shared section, which could run through a number of properties, is TW's problem.

TW will have diagrams available online to give you the picture.

You could ask them whether they want help.

I am no expert on drains, but I can think of two explanations for the blockage:

1. They are putting unsuitable things into the drain (in which case they can easily just stop doing so).
2. The drain is breaking up (and a camera scan should show that).

That's not clear either. Bit like the one I found. It shows the public drain extending beyond the place where they join up.

That drawing is less ambiguous, thanks. It also makes sense.

They are pretty well off, so more just need advice - if they ask.

My guess is it revolves around works done long before they bought. A boiler was fitted in the outside loo - and the loo removed. And given the bodgers who did this work I'd not be sure the soil pipe was capped off properly. Likely just filled with rubble. All problems seem to date from then.

If only your s*it goes through a pipe on your property, it's your responsibility.

If someone else's s*it (with or without yours) goes through a pipe on your property, it's public

If a pipe isn't on your property, it's public.

Tree roots can also find their way into joints.

That diagram looks OK, the red is 'public sewer or lateral drain' - which it is doesn't matter. But the description of 'detached houses' etc is off. It doesn't matter what shape your house is, it only matters under whose land the pipes run and where they go. Some detached houses have shared drains, some have public sewers running under their property, and they're just the same as other types of property.

I'm not sure of the status of flats. Although it may go with the freehold - since we're talking about 'land' rather than 'buildings'.

Theo

Plus, you may find due to the age of the property the local water company are responsible.

Our previous house was 1930s and we had a blockage, discovered while we were having some work done on the drive. The chap doing the work just cleared it FOC but mentioned, if it happened again, we shouldn?t need to pay due to the age of the property.

I share the sewer run through my property with two houses one side of my property and then it goes to the property the other side of mine before hitting the street.

In the decades that I've been in this property there has only been one major blockage which was cleared DIY with collaboration from all my neighbours. What did emerge from the houses upstream of me were pieces of broken toilet porcelain that we managed to fish out from the man-holes.

That's gone now. The rules changed a few years ago. It is now the property boundary that is the limit of responsibility, unless the sewer is shared - in which case the householder is responsible for the section from their house to the shared section.

Ours kept blocking and it turned out to be a dip in the pipework, where the ground must have sunk a few inches.

My guess is the problem lies on the link pipe between 'their' system and mine, between the two gardens. Some diagrams suggest this is 'theirs' - some not.

It is coming from them to you and not the other way around. That link pipe is all theirs - unless it also carries on to a third property, in which case the bit that they share with the third property is TW's responsibility.