Burst mains

Gerry14

Hi everyone only got the keys to our first house last week. Funnily enough the house attached to ours went up for sale the same week we got our keys (same auctioneer).

an hour into the house realised the toilets and taps weren’t working upstairs and the hot tap downstairs.

Turns out the original owner bought both houses side by side and fed a pipe from our neighbour’s attic to fill our tank in the attic. Now that the house is vacant and for sale beside us the water has been turned off therefore our tank in the attic is not filling.

we have checked and there is no mains water being fed from the sink downstairs up to the tank in the attic. We will have feed the mains up ourselves and blank the water pipe coming from the neighbours through the wall in the attic.

another issue is we just noticed the mains water outside the gate is filling up flooding the drive and down the road in the estate.

Irish water have been out and says the leak is at our front door which is not covered by Irish water..

Does anyone have any advice at all regarding what we can do regarding council coverage, home insurance, auctioneers not disclosing all these issues or speaking with solicitors.

I hope there’s something we do here as it’s about to cost us a lot more than we expected and the house isn’t liveable until this this issue is sorted..

Thanks in advance.

antoinolachtnai

Not a great situation. Very unlikely that you have any practical way to get compensation from the seller. Legally speaking a second hand home is not like other consumer goods in that you don’t have a right to expect that the house will be usable when you take possession.

Did you have a survey done?

How come you didn’t notice the outdoor leak before purchase?

Running a plastic pipe up to the attic should not be that expensive if you can find a suitable way to route it.

The neighbour needs to blank the connection to your tank on their side at some stage, preferably sooner rather than later. You can of course blank it on your side in the short term.

You can fill the roof tank with a hose as an emergency measure.

Lenar3556

So there is two separate issues?

1. The pipe supplying the mains feed to your attic tank was omitted during construction and this is fed from next door which is obviously not sustainable. This needs to be resolved within the house.
2. You have a leak outside your front door. This need to be exposed and repaired.

Do you have cold water at your kitchen sink all the time?

As advised the poster above, it’s very unlikely that you have a claim against the sellers agent or anyone else for that matter. I would say just get it resolved.

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121215053#Comment_121215053

I’d disagree with the last part. Standard requisitions which the seller is required to disclose include whether or not there is a connection to mains water which there isn’t in any meaningful sense. It sounds as if the supply to the house failed and instead of fixing it, the owner jerried up a solution with the adjoining house. That is a material non-disclosure and you should raise it with your conveyancing solicitor. I don’t see how there was ever mains fee cold water to the kitchen on this basis.

Gerry14

Unfortunately we did not pay for a surveyors report. We had paid €900 on a previously sale agreed property to find out there was 90k repairs to happen, the auctioneer wouldn’t reduce the sale price after we received this information from the engineer.

We did take a family member who is a project manager to the initial viewing and the water was all working fine, we didn’t check the attic. The water at the mains needs to be on for a few hours before the leak is noticeable. My guess is the auctioneer turned on the water directly before viewings. The house next door was lived in when we viewed our property so they had their water turned on, which meant we had water upstairs.

Looks like there was never a chased mains pipe running directly from the mains at the kitchen sink.

Irish water have been out yesterday and said the leak is not at the meter but directly at our front door. We might be entitled to the first fix leak scheme. An engineer will be with us in 3/5 days to hopefully mend the leak .

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121219091#Comment_121219091

But there is a connection to mains water. It is piped all the way as far as the kitchen sink, and the supply is operating normally except for a small leak at the front door.

There is pipework missing / damaged to the attic cold water storage tank, but this is a relatively minor internal plumbing issue.

I really don't see a cause of action.

Would a surveyor have spotted it? Maybe, if it was very obvious in the attic. Most surveys I have come across were of limited scope, and providers tend to contract themselves out of much responsibility for items not identified.

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121220343#Comment_121220343

There is a connection but not a supply. The requisitions are written in a manner to force disclosure of issues like this and a lack of frankness should be addressed by a solicitor. Linking the house with another is not going to be any sort of acceptable practice.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121221099#Comment_121221099

There is a supply, at the kitchen tap. Uisce Eireann are about to carry out rectification works on the existing supply and if there is an issue will confirm for the seller that there is and was a supply. Linking two houses like this is obviously outrageous but I don’t think it is worth risking court costs over.

if the OP did take the case and win, the seller would rectify the matter by running a qual-pex pipe up the outside of the house. This is a shabby way to do it but the OP could do that him/herself on Saturday for a few hundred euros.

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121221099#Comment_121221099

The standard law society requisitions on title ask only if the property is ‘serviced with water’ and if so, is it from Irish Water mains, a well, group water scheme etc.

A mere connection to the mains, and pipe entering into the grounds of the property somewhere would be sufficient to allow for a simple ‘yes’ and ‘Irish Water Mains’

God only knows what messing was going on that the previous owner was filling an attic tank from next door, but regardless it is the new owners responsibility to remedy it.