Percolation area in neighbours property

A

Alibaba

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I'm currently in the process of buying a house and an issue has arisen where part of the percolation area for the septic tank is in the neighbouring property. The neighbour previously owned the house I'm trying to buy. The vendor and his solicitor have suggested that a letter of easement from the neighbour will suffice. My solicitor is not happy with a letter of easement as the neighbour may sell his property in the future and the easement may no longer be valid and with the likelihood of a septic tank inspection in the future I may also have an issue if the percolation area is not within the boundaries of the property. My surveyor has suggested that a pumping station be installed for the septic tank which would mean that it doesn't require the same percolation area. I'm not sure of the detail of this yet as he is currently on holidays.

Any advice on how this issue can be resolved would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
 
My solicitor is not happy with a letter of easement as the neighbour may sell his property in the future and the easement may no longer be valid and with the likelihood of a septic tank inspection in the future
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Take all your solicitors advice..........and my advice would be to walk away unless there was a compelling reason to buy the house (need, price)

may also have an issue if the percolation area is not within the boundaries of the property.
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It sounds like a nightmare...............
may have an issue
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he vendor and his solicitor have suggested that a letter of easement from the neighbour will suffice
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I'm not sure of the detail of this
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If you dont walk away...
Perhaps the pumping station is to pump the stuff to the local authority sewer..

Owner septic tanks are becoming an increasing pain in the ass, especially with all the modern chemical we use the microbes don't always get a chance to digest


If so instead of a letter of easement, price up the pumping job to the local sewer, add in an amount for a spare pump and say 10 years power usage and get that knocked off the price.


How does the neighbour deal with his sewage?

Perhaps his percolation area in your property
 
Thanks for replies monagt and ircoha.

I'm very much inclined to listen to my solicitors advice. In fact I feel that the vendors solicitor would give the same advice if she was representing her client in a purchase scenario ! I like the house, the site, the locality etc but am concerned about the percolation issue as don't want to take on an issue that may cause me grief in the future. In fact, I think it may be illegal to have a percolation area on neighbouring property...
My plan is to get more detail about the pumping station from the surveyor next week & understand how it works, costings etc. Theres no local authority sewage system as its a rural area. The neighbour has his own septic tank & percolation area.
 
Glad to share views.
Just for my further education I looked a bit and found a few links that referred to pumped and percolation:

It might give some idea whats in store.

The other thing you might price up is the cost of having the tank pumped out say once a year or so: is there easy access and if there is, is the landscaping capable of carrying the weight of the truck.
Most paved areas at rear of houses can't carry the weight of such truck without some subsidence.

ps
given that you may be working on the boundary, and notwithstanding the all friendly current relations, you might find this link of interest at some point:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2009/en/act/pub/0027/sec0043.html#sec43
I include it because it is surprising the number of rural lawyers who don't (seem to) know about it
 
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The pumping system will not work, it needs somewhere to pump it too.
If your neighbour does even the slighest bit of work in his garden he is going to ruin your percolation area. And in a dry time tree and plant roots grow towards this area as it is damp. The roots will block it up and you can do nothing about it. I have fixed them often, walk away you wwill get trouble sooner or later.
 
Just to back up what everyone here has already said. Septic tank and percolation areas has been the biggest pain in the a%& I have had over 15 years in a self-build house, and my percolation area is in my garden. If there is not enough land available to you at the rear top put in your own PA, then I would walk away because it will bring you nothing but grief. Perhaps you cold negotiate a bit of ground or a price reduction to put in your own, etc?
 
A nightmare scenario that I have seen a number of times. In most of the cases the person was able to either (a) install a wastewater treatment system (WWTS) within their site or where there was insufficient land (b) buy a piece of ground from an adjoining landowner to install a WWTS.

Unfortunately I dealt with one case about 8 years ago where a purchaser bought an old cottage, but it turned out the percolation area was in the adjoining field. The farmer refused to sell the piece of ground needed for the percolation area and went so far as to take a digger in and remove the percolation area off his land (by the way the famer was the person who sold the cottage in the first place!). The cottage owner didn't have sufficiant seperation distances to install a WWTS as there were 4 domestic wells in proximity of his site.

That case ended up in the civil courts and 8 years on that cottage is still not occupied as it has no means of dealing with effluent safely.

The only way to sort this out properly is to obtain planning permission to install a new percolation area (and possibly a new WWTS too) within the boundaries of you own site, which is EPA CoP 2009 compliant.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses and advice, all very much appreciated.

On recommendation of my surveyor I got a guy out to the property who works with installing & maintaining septic tanks and percolation areas. He gave me a price for installing a new percolation area on the property, the property is large enough for this to be possible. I have negotatiated a reduction in the price of the property to offset this cost and am intending getting this job ASAP.
Thanks again...
 
A few photographs would be great, have you not enough area within your boundary for a percolation area?
 
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