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Driveways & Paving

New driveway caused neighbour's water pipe to be crushed

Anonymous user 03/03/2024 - 3.05 PM

My next door neighbour was renovating their house and no one was living there when my new driveway was laid. A month after the work was completed my neighbour complained that there was no water coming into her house. I explained that I had showed my builder where my water piped were coming into the house and he was very careful when he started to dig the front garden. The neighbour called out Thames Water on 2 occasions and they could not find any issues as the stop value located on the pavement was working fine. My neighbour then hired a builder who then dug up her from garden to see if there was a break in the pipe run from the outside pavement into her house. What her builder found, was that even though the Thames Water stop valve was located directly in front of her property, the actual water pipe from the stop valve infact ran into my property and then back into hers. The assumption here is that when my builder compacted the hardcore and sand, he must have crushed the water pipe. The neighbor is now left with a £650 bill - who is liable to pay this?

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4 Answers

Anonymous user

Get in touch with you the company that did the work . The water pipe should have been moved before the sub base was laid and compacted. This is his mistake and he should pay the bill directly himself or threw his liability insurance. If it was me who made the mistake I would certainly foot the bill

Answered1 February 2014

Rowan Groundworks Ltd

Rating: 5 out of 5

Wellingborough

You don't say how old your house is and what type of water pipe it was, if an older property water pipes were inclined to wander all over the place, in a newer type house this should not happen, if less than 10 years old and under any sort of warranty contact them and get it moved out of your property, you are not liable to pay for something that is not yours, in fact you could ask them to move from your land Peter

Answered1 February 2014

Patios & Drives Turfcare

Rating: 5 out of 5

Ross On Wye

I don't actually believe this is your fault. Why should your builder be aware of your neighbours pipework. He obviously took care to look after your pipework which you had informed him about. This should not be on your property in the first place. Ask you neighbour to move the pipe onto their property. You could look at it this way. If your neighbour's pipe was to leak and cause damage to your driveway, who would be responsible? We had a very similar situation on a job we were working on. The householder had installed a new water pipe and explained where it was which was well away from where we were working. On excavating his driveway we found numerous wet spots and were asked to investigate. We found an old lead pipe running up the middle of his drive which was in very poor condition and leaking all over the place. Believing this to be the original pipe into the house we managed to turn it off only to find this pipe eventually fed into the neighbours who then had no water. The water company were called and informed the neighbour it was their responsibility and they would have to pay for the repairs and should pay to have a new pipe on there property. They were also informed that if they did not move the pipe and any future leaks caused damage to our clients drive they would be liable.

Answered2 February 2014

Anonymous user

your builder should have seen the additional pipe from your house to theirs. your builder will be at fault at first, this is a reason we have insurance especially for ground works. but if no joy with your builder you had the work done and why should your neighbour pay, I would be inclined to foot the bill yourself if it were me

Answered1 February 2014