My dad’s water supply is pumped storage from a natural spring, stored in a 20,000 gallon tank and gravity fed to the house.

He noticed that the pump which refills the tank had been running at maximum capacity for a few weeks, and concerned he had a leak, walked the length of the pipe (part of which runs over his neighbours’ land.

He was somewhat surprised to see that both had tapped into the pipe and were using it for livestock (cattle and over a hundred sheep).

He called me tonight absolutely apoplectic and I talked him into sleeping on it, as opposed to going around directly to talk to the neighbours, whom he doesn’t know well.

He reckons, at an absolute minimum based on known pump capacity, he’s lost about 100,000 litres of fresh water from a fairly limited supply.

On the grand scheme of things, is this the sort of thing that it would be sensible to give the police a call about? I suspect if you did the same thing to United Utilities they wouldn’t sit idly on it.

I’m quite for sending them a bill based on the current price of Evian in a motorway service station…

Theft innit.

The police should certainly be involved at some point. I assume he took pics/vids of the pipework?

Edit: Although what jam bo says certainly holds water.

I’d be reading the agreement that lets him run the pipe over his neighbours land before I did anything else.

Edit: I have a part share in some woodland. When a neighbouring property want to join the mains they needed to come through our wood. We didn’t profit from it, you can’t, but we insisted they paid all legal fees and made good any damage done. Maybe we should have slipped in a clause about tapping into the supply.

Who actually owns the spring water?

Disconnect tap – reconnect to a “different source”
Sit back and wait for outcome…..
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Few hundred miligrams of Agent Picolax should do it….

Oh yes, I should add that there is absolutely no doubt about the ownership of the water, as it used to be his land until recently and the deed of sale contained access rights to maintain the water pipe.

Pumped from his spring to his tank at the top of the hill, then runs down to the house over neighbour’s land.

Does he live near Peckham?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-475338/Budding-Del-Boy-sells-version-Peckham-Spring–water-garden.html

Sounds like a reasonable first pitch.
Check the agreement / lease your father has regarding the route of the pipe over their land land first though.
Last thing he needs is landowner deciding the this is no longer acceptable.

I was in rental property in Cornwall two weeks ago, the tap has been dripping not able to turn off properly for the last three years we have been there, I worked out it wastes 250 litres a week. Property owner was pretty quick to fix it after we had told him that, for the third time…

I worked out it wastes 250 litres a week.

Thames water waste 1/3 of its supply in leaks, which works out at several 100 million litres a day…..

Sounds like a reasonable first pitch.
Check the agreement / lease your father has regarding the route of the pipe over their land land first though.
Last thing he needs is landowner deciding the this is no longer acceptable.

Oh yes, I should add that there is absolutely no doubt about the ownership of the water, as it used to be his land until recently and the deed of sale contained access rights to maintain the water pipe.

Pumped from his spring to his tank at the top of the hill, then runs down to the house over neighbour’s land.
Seems clear enough, deed of sale gives right of access for maintenance, not right to tap into the pipe for their own use.
I’d be looking at any possible way to divert the pipe along an alternative route, then cut the scrounging bastards off completely.
There are rules regarding water abstraction, if you set up a turbine for power generation on your own watercourse I understand the local water company can charge for the use of the water, so maybe these people need to be sent a legal letter with an invoice for use of water.

There are notifiable quantities iirc its 7000L a day as an avergae over each weekm where you need to let the water authority know you are drawing that much.
There are also health and saftey issues now with his tank of water .
Depending on how its been set , the flow could have been greater than any treatment could handle ( filters / UV ) so he may now have a tank of water full of bugs

Its bang out of order , there is also a cost of the electric for the pump, as well as the water . Its not alotof pence per M3 but he has no idea exactly when its been tapped into.

Surprised they managed it if the pump is on a pressure drop demand system mind, as cutting the pipe would have dropped the pressure, although there are special cutters on the market that you can open up a ‘live’ pipe.

Notify water board and police is probably the way forward . entilted twunts

Sounds like you have an easement for acess for your water main to your own private supply.

You could cut them off and go nuclear with them…. or you could approach them as if they’ve made an honest mistake… get their spur disconnected and move on..,,

If they act like entitled gits then you may have to go nuclear with them… however they will still be the neighbours

And the pipe may start to spring mysterious leaks…

I bet the neighbours have now started some water bottling factory in the shed. Bet they have also contaminated the water.

Water is about a pound per cubic metre for supply side. He’s down 100 cubic metres. Certainly needs to raise it but a bit early for the nuclear option.

Time to go round for a chat with the neighbour. They probably think that they are just diverting a bit of water and no harm is being done. After all your dads tank is staying full and he’s using a bit more electricity. So the actual cost to him at the moment is minimal.

Hopefully this can be settled amicably. You can’t get away from you neighbours and I suspect even with an agreement in place, falling out with them, (as other have said) they could make life very difficult for your father.

Surprised they managed it if the pump is on a pressure drop demand system mind, as cutting the pipe would have dropped the pressure, although there are special cutters on the market that you can open up a ‘live’ pipe.

They tapped into the side downstream of the tank. The pump just runs on a series of timers and level switches, but is set up to send him a text message if it exceeds a certain volume per week.

Stick a meter on the illegal water supply, then send bills based upon estimated usage (or actual) but more fun to guess, like water companies do.

How did your dad find out the pipe had been tapped into? Did he trespass on his neighbours land to confirm this?

RAGGATIP – Member
How did your dad find out the pipe had been tapped into? Did he trespass on his neighbours land to confirm this?

Doesn’t sound like it…from this earlier in the thread…

Flaperon – Member
Oh yes, I should add that there is absolutely no doubt about the ownership of the water, as it used to be his land until recently and the deed of sale contained access rights to maintain the water pipe.

RAGGATIP – Member

How did your dad find out the pipe had been tapped into? Did he trespass on his neighbours land to confirm this?
🙄 Nice attempt at victim blaming there.

Nice attempt at victim blaming there.

Poor attempt at reading the thread properly before trying to be clever though.

I’ve read the thread thank you.
I can see the bit where he followed the pipe “over his neighbours land”, I would imagine its open fields or farmland, not somebodies front room, so access may even have been through a right of way.

“the deed of sale contained access rights to maintain the water pipe” covers going on to his neighbor’s land to check for a leak.

which considering his water was going missing, seems a reasonable thing to have done. And regardless, trespass is no crime whereas theft certainly is.

I’ve read the thread thank you.

Ok. So it was a comprehesion fail then.

How so? What have I failed to comprehend? Given that he had right of access over his neighbours land to maintain the pipe etc.

I think nealglover is getting his posts mixed up.

OP. We need closure.

How so?

My first post was agreeing with your criticism of Raggatip.

My second was also, but got mixed up with who said what. 😐

nealglover – Member

How so?

My first post was agreeing with your criticism of Raggatip.

My second was also, but got mixed up with who said what.
Ha! So we were actually agreeing!!!! I was genuinely concerned that I’d missed something pertinent to my comment.

OP. We need closure.

He’s drip feeding us information. Don’t faucet