Drainage & Water Reports. What are they and why do you need one?

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Video Transcript:

"Hello again, my name is Dan I’m from Property Searches Direct.

We’ve had a lot of calls, we get a lot of calls over the weeks with regard to drainage and water reports.

A drainage and water reports is a really important thing to have when you’re looking to buy a property, it’s vital when you're looking to buy a property with a mortgage because the lender will insist on it.

But why do you need one what's the importance of it and what do they actually mean?

Well, importantly, when you get the Drainage and Water report you will see on the first page that you get, that looks a little bit like this one here, that you will see an overview of the connections at the property. So whether the mains water is connected, so that's the drinking water, the clean water you have coming into the property, are you getting that from the mains, in other words your local water authority supplier.

Is the foul water connected? So foul water is everything that you go down a drain or down the toilet. So if it's not connected then of course the property itself will have its own treatment system, a soak away or some sort of septic tank that needs to be managed yourself. So if it's not connected then you need to ask or ascertain exactly what the solutions are at the property for foul water.

Then there's surface water. You need to know where the surface water goes; everything that falls onto the roof comes down the guttering, where does that go? Is that connected into your mains drain system or is that going into some sort of soak away, so that’s what that means there.

The importance of a sewage pipe within the boundary and other water pipes that are owned by the water authority coming across your boundary are really important things to know and on one of the last pages in the reports there is a reference map that is an interpretation of the details held by the local water authority and you'll see that there is a legend there or leg end is a legend legend and little menu of things it'll say help you interpret the content of the report, so, exactly, I say exactly, it'll suggest where the foul sewer lies across the the property, if it is indeed within the boundary of the property.

It's not an exact science. We've had some reports where it's been suggested that the foul water sewer is within the property boundary and then neighbouring properties have actually confirmed that that's not the case.

We've had extracts from the local water authority themselves who have provided the mapping that suggests that although this is drawn in a certain area it actually may not be there, you need to have a site surveys confirm exactly where it is. However, if one of the maps comes back and suggest that the foul water sewer or the mains water provision is actually coming through your boundary you kind of need then to actually understand exactly where it is.

Why would you want to know that?

If you’re planning on extending your property, so if you’re buying a property with the expressed wish to extend it, it’s vital that you know where those main sewers are because you can’t just build over them and you can’t build really close to them because they need to be accessed by the water authority. So you want to know where they are, whether they might affect your desire to extend a property and importantly just brace yourself because should they ever need access to that infrastructure you need to provide it.

So again a good thing to know.

The other thing in the report of course there will be a whole load of questions answered about the public sewer arrangements, the surface water, the adoption of sewers and build over arrangements and all sorts of other things. They look quite complicated but with a bit of patience and some reading they do make sense, however, we are always at the end of the phone to help interpret the information in that water report and help you to understand exactly what they contain.

I've put a link beneath this video so that if you haven't got a Drainage & Water Report and you need one, you know where to buy them and of course just visit us on our website at propertysearchesdirect.co.uk and get in contact with us if you have any questions.

That's a Drainage & Water Report, we'll keep you updated with other bits and pieces in due course.

Take care"