A drain at the back of our house has got a leak.

Since 2011 many houses, anything to the external wall has to be covered by the local water authority. So they came out yesterday (when I wasnt there), and left a note saying the drain was not their responsibility.

Odly when I called back to discuss the lady who had plans of our drains on her computer said that she thought they were all covered by Yorkshire Water.

I’d like to see the plans myself so I can see exactly what drains they have on their system, and see if this is an additional one. I cant see how it would be though, as I have dug out around the drain, and you can quite see that it has been there the 100 years the house has.

I think its going to be a very expensive repair, so I can see why they woud want to pass on responsibility, and like wise I do not want to have to pay too!

The local sewerage company.
Yorkshire water is one of the companies that manages water and sewage so these are the boys you should talk to.
You can get a copy of your local sewer map for around 35 quid.
http://www.yorkshirewater.com/extra-services/developer-services/sewerage-services/building-over-or-near-a-sewer.aspx

Whether the drain has transferred to their responsibility will depend on what connects to it, and where it is.

This summarises things:

http://www.water.org.uk/home/policy/private-sewers-transfer/customer-info/before-after

Unless it was actually a public sewer, it’s highly likely that it still won’t be shown on the sewer records, regardless of who now has responsibility for it.

Did YW give any indication as to why they thought it wasn’t their responsibility? If it’s only serving your house, and in your land, then it wouldn’t be theirs.

I took that it was his because it connects to his wall then it’s his and not a public sewer.

If it is a single house drain then it’s very unlikely it will be covered on the sewer map but he should be able to see which ones do belong to YW.

I think it’s only their responsibility if someone else’s drains flow into yours then onto the main sewer, so your kinda downstream. If you attach straight to the main sewer without being linked to anyone else it’s yours, if that makes any sense. In my experience they don’t have much of a clue where any of these residential drains are!

In my job I have access to the full YW sewer mapping software (I don’t work for YW and I can’t supply you with a map I’m afraid). It sounds like it will be your responsibility if its close to the house and no one else is discharging into the drain upstream of the leak.
As far as YW not knowing where these previously private sewers are – I’m not surprised! I have worked with them before and they have mapped some but there are tens of thousands of these private sewers which they suddenly were responsible for. The vast majority never have any problems so it isn’t an issue. When a problem does occur they sort it out and map it at the same time. It would cost far too much money to map everything and it isn’t necessary to be done if there aren’t any problems.