Hi,
Firstly, apologies if this seems a bit long-winded!
I live in an estate, in which I bought a house 7 years ago. The estate was finished 18 months ago and has not yet been taken over by the council.
I recently had a blockage in one of my toilets and went to find the manhole outside to inspect it. I couldn't find any manhole for this toilet so I rang the contractor and asked him to come out and show me the sewer layout. It turned out that the manhole in question was buried underneath the garden at the side of the house. So, he dug up the manhole cover and we opened the sewer to have a look. The blockage was cause by the manifold at the bottom being cracked and 'catching' stuff going passed. He cleared the blockage and told me a digger must have driven over the manhole when laying topsoil. He didn't repair the manifold but raised the cover up to ground level again.
My question is this. The council are due to take over the estate before the end of the summer, pending a few broken kerbs (and one cracked sewer elsewhere, on the public area)to fix etc..
As I have a crack in the sewer from my house, the council will want it rectified before taking over. Is the contractor obliged to fix it in order to satisfy the council, or am I liable because it's on our site, even though the contractor caused it when building the house?
I feel it would be expensive to fix and I think the contractor should rectify it as he caused it, even though I didn't notice it until recently. I have no reason to go around checking sewers!!
Firstly, apologies if this seems a bit long-winded!
I live in an estate, in which I bought a house 7 years ago. The estate was finished 18 months ago and has not yet been taken over by the council.
I recently had a blockage in one of my toilets and went to find the manhole outside to inspect it. I couldn't find any manhole for this toilet so I rang the contractor and asked him to come out and show me the sewer layout. It turned out that the manhole in question was buried underneath the garden at the side of the house. So, he dug up the manhole cover and we opened the sewer to have a look. The blockage was cause by the manifold at the bottom being cracked and 'catching' stuff going passed. He cleared the blockage and told me a digger must have driven over the manhole when laying topsoil. He didn't repair the manifold but raised the cover up to ground level again.
My question is this. The council are due to take over the estate before the end of the summer, pending a few broken kerbs (and one cracked sewer elsewhere, on the public area)to fix etc..
As I have a crack in the sewer from my house, the council will want it rectified before taking over. Is the contractor obliged to fix it in order to satisfy the council, or am I liable because it's on our site, even though the contractor caused it when building the house?
I feel it would be expensive to fix and I think the contractor should rectify it as he caused it, even though I didn't notice it until recently. I have no reason to go around checking sewers!!