Hello stw hive mind, in a bit of a pickle here.

We purchased a property last year. When we were having works done the builder found that we had a void underneath our foundation. We suspected that the drain outside our property parallel to the wall was the cause of this. It is in fact serving our neighbour and is on his property. He proclaimed that he was certain that the drain was not at fault, however agreed to allow us to have it surveyed with a CCTV camera. Lo and behold there is a large section of the clay pipe cracked and/or missing and will cost about 1.5k to dig up and fix.

We presented these facts to him at the beginning of January. Despite us chasing him he has yet to do anything about it. We are facing about 10k of underpinning to fix this and our insurers won’t cover it as it is preventative maintenance.

So apart from weeing in his shoes, or using bombers, is there anything we can do, especially from a legal standpoint. So far it has stayed on relatively friendly terms. We have already been to CAB and they have not been very helpful. They just told us to write him a letter. So, any helpful thoughts and advice please!

Cheers.

Insurance.

Got legal cover on your home insurance? If so, I’d be speaking to them right away

You can usually get free advice from a solicitor, you only have to pay for them to actually do stuff AFAIK.

Insurance won’t cover us as they class it as ”preventative maintenance”. We don’t have legal cover, but a solicitor is not out of the question

Well at the very least pee in his shoes, and also his foundations. Other than that likely your insurance company with offer some kind of legal advice.

We are facing about 10k of underpinning to fix this and our insurers won’t cover it as it is preventative maintenance.

Doesn’t sound right to me, I’d get another opinion.Your house foundations have been damaged therefore insurance should cover it.

have you established that he is the owner of the drain.

Some are now the water company responsibility

http://www.ccwater.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.1278

It’s somebody elses preventative maintenance — not yours — that caused it…

so I’d say take advice and speak to your shysters insurance company again.

Your insurance company are saying that or his.
You claim for subs on yours & they go for recovery from his.
You cant be held responsible for not carry out preventative maintenance when its not your property.

Could it be whatever caused the void under your foundation also damaged the drain ?

Basically the underpinning is classed as preventative maintenance as the property wall has not yet subsided. It’s our insurance company that have stated this. As we are now aware of it we are under a duty of care to have this fixed. We were told this by the insurance loss adjusters.

Grumm – did not know that re solicitors. Appt is overdue I think.

Dj glover – pretty certain that its going to be his responsibility, but I will have a look at that link. Ta.

Marcus – it looks likely that the escaped water from the drain has washed the soil from under our foundations. It has probably been going on for years.

Cheers all.

Surely you need legal advice as I suspect his insurance company/him will have some liability here. Your neighbour couldn’t have foreseen the break so I’d agree with contacting your legal insurance if you have it and asking them to look at/pursue. The advice re a solicitor is right though watch out that when they do formally ‘act’ for you they make up for not billing you….. in spades so to speak 😉

If there is no subsidence damage to your house then I guess your insurers are correct to reject your claim.

It appears that your neighbours are legally liable for the problem – they or their insurers should be sorting it out. You may have some legal cover under your own insurance to help you pursue the neighbours, or possibly through work or a union

Does it only go to the neighbour, or does it also go on to other neighbours? That makes a difference in terms of who is responsible for it I think, water company or neighbour.

Whatever, If it isn’t your drain, and it is clear that it has caused the damage to your house due to failure to maintain it, then someone is responsible for it, and possibly for any damage caused by it. Assuming the neighbour (or his insurance company) hasn’t said he’ll pay you 10k straight away, you need to talk to a solicitor (potentially there may be specialists in building issues who would be better than your average high st one, I don’t know) and find out whether they think he is liable.

Flip – Piping of granular soils can occur beneath foundations. However, water usually follows a pre-exisitng weakness in the fabric of the soil, along a line of least resisitance. This path of least resitstnce is typically not beneath foundations where the building loads have consolidated the bearing soils by reducing pore spaces, etc over time. (The path of least resstance is often the granular bedding surrounding the drain and / or material which has been disturbed during the construction of the service). ‘Something’ must dictate that the water from the drain had deviated from this likely pathway beneath your foundation. Just saying like.

Agree with MoreCashThanDash, your insurance won’t touch it until there is damage and they can put in a counter claim against your neighbours insurance. I would have thought the best approach is for your neighbour to approach his insurance company on the grounds that it will be cheaper for them to fix it now rather than when damage begins to occur. I would encourage your neighbour to do this by making it very clear that you will be putting it in the hands of your solicitor should he not get this fixed. You have all the evidence you need to prove your claim and a solicitors letter should focus your neighbours mind, it doesn’t have to get uncivil, you point out to your neighbour that you have involved a solicitor as you believe this is the only way to get his insurance company to act.

Thanks for your advice folks. I think I will speak to a solicitor asap to see where we can go. I don’t want to go down the legal route and find that we spend as much money on legal fees as it would have cost to get the drain sorted…

My very limited knowledge, based on some googling and a quick chat to my insurers a while ago, seems to suggest that property owners are only liable if they are negligent. I.e. they were aware of a pre existing issue and did not act upon it? Which in this case I do not think he was.

So basically, my understanding is that it’s unlikely that I will be able to claim against his insurers.

avdave, are you effectively suggesting that he claims on his own insurance for the drain and the underpinning?

The neglect comment doesn’t sound right to me – if their chimney pot fell into your conservatory causing huge damage they would be responsible whether it was neglected or not. Likewise if a fire started in their house and damaged yours, no neglect as such but you’d have a claim. You’ve suffered damage through no fault of yours hence I’d expect to be able to claim against the responsible person in respect of the ’cause’ i.e. the property owner/leaseholder. Good luck and expect any sensible person/ins company would prefer to d/w now at a lower cost than face a legal wrangle and a higher bill as the damage potentially increases.

Are you saying, in the OP, that the damage was probably there when you bought the house? That might affect whether you can claim anything, as it was the previous owner whose asset was damaged. Worth asking the solicitor if it makes a difference – I might be wrong.

Have you had a chat with him to find out if he’s actually going to do anything first, before spending/wasting money on legal fees?

You said you’d mentioned it in January, but since?

avdave, are you effectively suggesting that he claims on his own insurance for the drain and the underpinning?

Well he needs to get his drain fixed on the basis he is now aware of the condition and as no damage has resulted to your house any that does is while he is aware of the issue and he’ll have no defence if you have to sue him in the future.

Are you saying, in the OP, that the damage was probably there when you bought the house? That might affect whether you can claim anything, as it was the previous owner whose asset was damaged. Worth asking the solicitor if it makes a difference – I might be wrong.

Yes, it looks like the drain has been broken for a while. The thing is technically the house is undamaged. The brickwork is still holding (for now), but the soil underneath the foundations is not supporting. There’s about 2 inches of space between the soil and the bottom of the foundation along a 3 metre section of wall.

Have you had a chat with him to find out if he’s actually going to do anything first, before spending/wasting money on legal fees?

You said you’d mentioned it in January, but since?

yes, I spoken to him several times and nothing, nada. He is a plumber(!) and wants to tackle the issue himself, but claims he has not had time as he is self employed and is always busy.

The pipework is under a layer of concrete so it’s not an easy job. Even so, now starting to get the feeling that he’s playing games.

Well he needs to get his drain fixed on the basis he is now aware of the condition and as no damage has resulted to your house any that does is while he is aware of the issue and he’ll have no defence if you have to sue him in the future.

This is what I think seems to be the case. I’m not sure he’s entirely aware of this though.

yes, I spoken to him several times and nothing, nada. He is a plumber(!) and wants to tackle the issue himself, but claims he has not had time as he is self employed and is always busy.

The pipework is under a layer of concrete so it’s not an easy job. Even so, now starting to get the feeling that he’s playing games.

Ah, ok that’d sound right then. He doesn’t want to pay someone when he could do it himself, but he’s no time.

Have you suggested that you are quite happy to help him.

And based upon my MIL putting in an insurance claim for ‘subsidence’ and the subsequent hike in premiums and an inability to go to any other company – the last thing I’d do is to involve them.

Her claim was for £1000, her excess was £500. Her premiums are now pa more than she got back. And yes, she wasn’t poor so had the cash originally to pay and I did warn her…

Subsidence with the known cause being a broken drain should not affect your future prospects of getting insurance. Once the drain is fixed the problem is not going to re occur. When I worked in Shoeburyness my landlady had the same problem as you caused by her own drain and only picked up when the back of the house began to move away from the front. She had no issues with continuing insurance.

It does seem that only a solicitors letter is going to focus your neighbours mind on this. Again as I said before there is no need to fall out over it you are sending him the letter to help him in dealing with his insurance. However if he doesn’t pursue it with them it’s time to sue him. He may be able to fix his own drain but your not going to leave him to underpin your house.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick”

Subsidence with the known cause being a broken drain should not affect your future prospects of getting insurance.

Yeah, right. Happened to me and I find it very hard to get insurance even though the works were fixed about 15 years ago!

I would be pushing for his insurance to sort it as you want your foundations putting back to the condition they were in before the problem. Surely if they don’t fix the problem they could be classes as negligent as they are allowing damage to occur. You would probably need a surveyor to put together a report saying that damage to your house is inevitable if it’s not fixed.

Are you sure you don’t have legal cover? It’s normally included with most policies or failing that you may have other access to legal cover.

I’d be mentioning ‘duty of care’

if your insurance company knows that the house is, possibly, unstable and is unwilling to correct it, because there is no damage ‘yet’ – but then the house collapses injuring or killing someone…

I can see the risk of them coming back at you if something does happen X years down the line saying you were negligent for not fixing it at the time.

This is not subsidence is it, it is plain damage. You need advice, it is not preventative maintenance it is preemtive action – you don’t have to wait for the damage to manifest and your insurers can subrogate against your neighbour’s insurers

The thing is technically the house is undamaged. The brickwork is still holding (for now), but the soil underneath the foundations is not supporting.

In that case, before you spend a lot of money on traditional underpinning, look at http://www.uretek.co.uk/ – they inject a polymer into the ground at low pressure and it fills the void. They would be able to tell you if their product is suitable.