Greywater soakage regulations

Deagol

Hi all, hopefully I'm in the right forum for this question - mods, please feel free to move if I'm wrong.

Hoping someone here can help answer a question for a noob!

Gone sale agreed on a single rural house built c.2000. House has public water scheme mains but septic tank for sewerage. My surveyor has brought up that the greywater has been diverted to it's own soakage pit in another area of the land and the council should have given permission for this.

The vendors are saying this was standard in 2000 when the house was built and that greywater was not supposed to go into the septic tank.

I've searched online but can't find much on this and what I can find relates to current regulations. If anyone has any expertise in this area and could comment I'd be very grateful. I'm seriously considering pulling out of the deal now as I'm very wary of the possible liabilities of having this system setup incorrectly and the costs of getting it fixed.

Thanks in advance for any help!

sydthebeat

it wasnt standard for c.2000 houses to have separate soakpits for greywater

SR6 1991 was the relevent standard back then....

http://www.siteassessor.com/images/dl/598cc866-9e13-102f-bc4a-a0da625daa40.pdf

which states that septic tanks were suitable for greywater treatment.

sydthebeat

dont pull out of the deal if this is your only issue.... i cant imagine its a difficult fix, and you could negotiate the purchase price to cover the cost of diverting to the septic tank.