House Purchase: Septic Tank & Other Issues

rjtire555

Hi,

I'm in the process of buying a house but some complications have arisen and I'm in desperate need of some informed advice - a colleague recommended I try here. Any advice appreciated!

The house we are attempting to buy is a one-off build for which planning was granted in 2003. The house commenced construction the same year. It was finished in 2005/2006. The owners are now selling. My solicitor has received a certificate of conformance from the vendor's engineer.

Everything was looking good until my engineer's survey last week. He observed that there are window differences on every elevation of the house compared to the plans (e.g. extra windows, different window locations etc), two missing doors and that, more worryingly, the septic tank is not vented and doesn't seem to be in the location on the plans.

The two options I'm considering are
1. Request the vendors to resolve all issues (my worry here is that my house is also sale agreed with patient cash buyers - further delays could upset the transaction on my house)

2. Come to an agreement with the vendors to execute the work at their expense after the house purchase has gone through (I'm mortgaging to buy the house so I'm not even sure if this is feasible)

If anyone has any experience of such a situation, your opinions on the following are welcome!
1. Is it crazy to do anything other than insist that the vendors resolve all issues prior to the transaction completing?
2. Is filing for retention likely to prompt a reexamination of the septic tank?
3. Is it possible to accurately asses an unvented septic tank and its percolation area without digging up the whole garden?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Thanks!

mickdw

You could complete your own sale, insist on issues being corrected and rent for a couple of months in the mean time if possible.
The way I see it, unless the elevation changes could be deemed exempted development, you will be best having them get retention.
Re the septic tank, there are 2 issues to consider - tank location and percolation area location.
In my opinion, if the percolation area was located as per planning and the tank located to satisfy all minimum separation distances, I would not be concerned if the tank itself was marginally moved relative to site layout drawing.
Given the age of the property (relatively new), planning department are unlikely to query septic tank again as long as the layout existing can be shown to meet require separation distances from dwelling etc.
A tank from mid 2000s should be constructed to a good standard so addressing the venting issue might not be a big job.

rjtire555

Hi mickdw,

Thanks for the sound advice.

I'm slow to rent as we already have small children and another on the way soon. Not an ideal time to be doing all of this. Apologies for the novice question - is there a way to get a survey of the percolation area without digging up the garden?

Thanks!

mickdw

There would seldom be need for a detailed survey of a percolation area.
A camera survey could be carried out or basic roding to establish that the pipe runs are actually there.

There should be a distribution chamber after the tank at which point effluent is spread to percolation area.
This can be inspected. If the chamber is clear and not backing up and if the land surface at the percolation area is not water logged or creating odour and if the percolation area is in the correct place, there would generally be nothing to worry about.
It is worth querying also the originally planning to see if it called up a raised percolation bed. This would have to be installed if required by planning.

rjtire555

Hi mickdw,

Again, thanks very much.

I guess the thing that left me confused from my engineer's survey is that we could track the pipes from the house converging on a single joint under an AJ but we could not find any inspection access for septic tank or distribution box. I guess we'd need to uncover these to bring clarity to the situation.

Cheers!

mickdw

Yes all chambers should be visible with openable covers.

You would want to identify distribution chamber after the tank and inspect there.