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I'm looking for a bit of advice on what, if anything I should do here.
TLDR:
Neighbour's water supply goes through, and is controlled from my kitchen. What should I do?
Long story :
We live in a Victorian terraced house. A couple of years after moving in the boiler broke. We turned the water off at the stopcock under the kitchen sink to allow the replacement to be installed.
The people living next door (tenants who also happen to be good friends) asked if there was a problem with the water as they had no supply.
It transpired that the stop cock in our kitchen also controlled their water. We also noted that when they ran a tap, our water meter turned.
Next door are not metered so are not shy to use water, we had never had a meter before so thought our usage was normal. When they run a tap, our pressure drops. This situation must have been present since water was put to the houses around 100 years ago.
We managed to get a refund of around 50% from water company for having two houses worth of use and they installed a second stop cock so that we can now isolate our water without impacting the neighbor's supply, however their supply still passes through our house.
This was all a couple of years ago, and sorting out properly was on a mental to do list that got forgotten about.
The neighbor's boiler is now broken and they need to isolate their supply. They are not able to find a stopcock, and the landlord doesn't know of one on their property, apparently on a previous occasion the landlord has asked the water company and they couldn't identify one either.
Obviously being spare key sharing friends with the neighbours, they are welcome to switch off their supply from under our sink for their new boiler to be fitted if we are not around, and in an emergency/leak situation they can do what they need to.
I'm not however happy with this as a long term solution and would like to know what to do.
We may not get on so well with the next tenants. Could I refuse them access to the stop cock, what might happen if I was away for a couple of weeks and they needed access?
If a leak occurs on their supply within our house, who is responsible?
Can I request /demand that their landlord installs a new supply to their house? Would I be responsible for any of this cost?
Is this situation common?
It is not really an issue right now, but at some inconvenient time in the future it may become one so would like to know where I stand.
Whatever I do, I don't want to be a dick about it.
Thanks
Hi, well , a meter should never have been fitted to a joint supply. I assume that the water company did that unless the supply was single at the point the meter was fitted.
Sub meter would be the easiest option but it still means that the water company bills you the full amount and you have to recover the sub metered usage yourself.
this is all subject to your water company t and c of course
i would call them!
Short term, there is a remote control stop cock valve, that could be fitted so they can turn it off, or the landlord should just have one fitted where the water enters their property.
If it’s a separate house, shouldn’t the water company fit a main supply, not via your house?
Yes but certainly not at the company’s expense
As I understand it (I have no particular expertise in this area) this was common in the past but is no longer permitted for new connections. You are jointly responsible for leaks in the section from the water company boundary to your neighbour's land. They have a right of access to the pipework on your side to make repairs (this will have been agreed at some point, and might be documented when you bought the house).
If they don't like it then they can apply for their own supply, but it's up to them to lay the pipe, arrange connection and pay.
There's nothing much you can do to force the issue.
The water company will use this as an excuse to try to sell you insurance.
Which water utility bills you for the supply?
Surely the easiest option to start with is to introduce a stop cock where their water enters the house. Literally as it pops up through the floor or through the wall, as a landlord I'd be doing that immediately to protect my asset anyway. One burst pipe, and it does happen and you've got a flooded property if there is no access to your side. It's such a simple job which can be done in 10 minutes by a decent plumber.
I'm in a similar situation on a shared supply from the boundary box, however both the neighbour and I have individual stop taps.
As for the metering side I would demand it be removed and to be put back on standard water rates as who the **** knows how much next door are using compared to you half and half just isn't good enough. And yes meters can be removed.
Get the boiler installers to fit a stopcock on the neighbours while the water is off. In their house obviously.
Thanks for the advice so far.
We sorted the metering issue a couple of years ago so now we are only metered for the water that we use. We were happy enough with the 50ish% rebate which amounted to around £500 for 2 years use, It did take some effort to convince the water company that we were being metered for the neighbours water though. "That can not be right sir, you will only be paying for your water".
The meter was fitted in the 90's, so all the previous owners had also apparently been paying double. Informed those that we had contact details for.
@ajaj there is nothing documented about the joint supply. If there was then the joint metering issue would have been previously picked up.
We have asked the tenants to ask the landlord to ask the plumber to fit an additional stopcock within their property, but am not overly hopeful of this happening. It has taken them over 4 weeks without heating to get the landlord to agree to a new boiler. We'll see what happens there.
A slight worry is that on certain house insurance policies there is a condition that mains water must be turned off if away for a certain period of time. I can turn the stopcock off on the spur that feeds my plumbing system, but would not want to turn off the transiting service.
An additional complexity is that I am planning an extension to the kitchen/back of the house in the next six months, I don't particularly want to have their water coming though and this could be a good time to force the issue.
@Teifiterror - SESW
This seems the simplest most logical solution:
Get the boiler installers to fit a stopcock on the neighbours while the water is off. In their house obviously.
Suggest it is the first thing they do - then they have freedom to work away without needing you around.
We may not get on so well with the next tenants. Could I refuse them access to the stop cock, what might happen if I was away for a couple of weeks and they needed access?
That would depend if it was for routine maintenance or an emergency. If there is a burst pipe and no access was possible to the stop cock then (1) a good plumber might be able to isolate the pipe without access (e.g. freeze - fit stopcock); (2) many houses will have a stop cock on the street that isolates one, or a small number of properties - your house would also be cut off then; (3) if all that fails, environmental health can apply for a warrant from a magistrate to force access to your premises to isolate the supply.
I only know about Yorkshire Water as I’ve never worked in other areas, but guess they would be similar/same.
Phone the water company and tell them that you need to replace a damaged stopcock but there is no outside stopcock for the property, so no way to turn off the water to do the work required
Mince tgey have been notified of this they will sort one out pretty quickly (often same day in my experience) they are responsible (once notified) for any damage caused by a leak inside the property that can’t be isolated due to lack of an outside stopcock. So they don’t hand around
As I said, my experience is only with Yorkshire Water, but I had dozens done over time and they always responded quickly.
Our insurance policy requires us to turn off the rising main in the house. It doesn't say anything about the external water main (and we can't, because like millions of others we're on a shared supply). The idea, presumably, is to stop the house turning into a fountain if the float valve in the cold water tank dies or the hot water heat exchanger rots. The OP can do that now with their new tap.
@ajaj All of our water is mains pressure fed with no header or cold tank. Turning off our 'new' stopcock whilst away will reduce risk by stopping water running around the whole house (combi boiler, bathrooms etc), but we are still left with the feed for us and next door entering at the front of the house, transiting though to the back, around the kitchen and then on to next door.
Amusingly the broken boiler incident that initially highlighted the issue was the week before we left the house for three weeks in winter. If the neighbours had not noticed us turning the water off for an hour to fit the new boiler then we would have then unknowingly turned their supply off for 3 weeks over Christmas.
The joys of old houses.
Two properties = 2 meters or a standard charge. It is unreasonable any other way. Mind you is the water board install a secon meter the supply to the house from the meter is the homeowners responsibility.
it is very common for a supply to go through a lower flat. It is stupid to have the stopcock in the lower flat. I am guessing this is a converted property.
when the boiler is being fixed turn if the water in your flat. They should then instal a stopcock upstairs. You turn the tap on downstairs and leave it alone and there are no more issues.
If I remember correctly you cannot deny access to the stopcock and in the event of a leak the police can be called to witness access being made. Not sure who pays for the new locks/door/window
edit: just had another thought. I read it as there are two stopcocks but in the lower flat. If there is just on before the split. Turn the water off at the meter. Get the guy doing the boiler to drop in two new stopcocks after the split.
Very common in older properties. I once turned the boundary stopcock off at one victorian house ...it turned the water off to eight properties.