Guttering: advice required please.

I'm trying to establish ownership/responsibility for the guttering at the front and rear of my semi-detached property.

At the front of the house the guttering runs the length of the roof of both properties and has only one down pipe. The down pipe is located at the end of the roof on my neighbours side.

At the rear of the properties, the reverse is true: the guttering runs along the length of the roof but, the down pipe is on my property.

So, I'm assuming that the guttering at the front of the property, plus maintenance and repair, would belong to our neighbour (because that is where the down pipe is) and that the guttering at the rear of our properties would be our responsibility (because that is where that down pipe is).

I cannot find any reference to this in the documents supplied by the solicitor or surveyor when we were buying the property - never even gave it a thought to be honest. However, I now need to know who, what, why, where and when!

As both have developed issues, I'd quite like to have some facts to hand so I can engage in conversation with my neighbour.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Normally as a rule of thumb is if it's attached to your property then it's your responsibility. You and your neighbour would therefore be responsible for the down pipes on your sides and 1/2 the gutter at the front and 1/2 at the back. I'd maybe have a chat to the neighbour if you are on good terms otherwise maybe better to be safe and speak to you solicitor who should give you a definitive answer.

 

I'm in a semi and my guttering ends on the boundry, although the down pipes front and back are central.
When I had new fascia and soffits fitted, the just replaced the down pipes as well, and then put the connection to the neighbours guttering a couple of inches over their side.

 

On the party wall, were your house meets there's

 

.... there's .... what? A party hat? Streamers? Bunting? A secret message? Spill the beans, Jiffster!

 

The party wall is the internal shared wall between you and your neighbours. So just extend the line of this outside and that's the dividing line.
The arrangement of guttering on my semi is similar but my neighbour has both downpipes. I have always looked after the guttering on my side of the semi front and back and and replaced it the other year. I have always assumed that what was on my property was my responsibility and the neighbour was responsible for what was on their property and that was their belief as well.
Although I often cleaned out all the guttering as I had a ladder and was younger.

 

This "M"

 

I know I'm bad at writing, spelling and grammer etc, i'm just about useless really but that's Jiffy i'll go back in my corner

 

Nonsense!
I thought you might have fallen off your chair half-way through typing

Now, get back out of your corner

 

With or without the D hat
No good at woodwork, but good at welding

 

What is fixed to your side of the party wall is yours. What is you neighbour's side is theirs .

You have one downpipe each which raises the question who is responsible if the drain serving the downpipe each side were to block IE say your downpipe were to overflow and it turns out the drain under ground has blocked ( This would apply to the more modern type where the downpipe disappears into the ground) Or the drain its self overflows sending the water over the ground.

We may assume that the one our side is ours the one their side is theirs ? So one each ?

But it doesn't work out quite like that.

The responsibility of both drains is shared. So if matey next doors drain blocks the cost would have to be shared. The drain after all serves both properties.

To make it even more complex its only blockages from the rainwater goods IE the gutters that cause blockages that are shared. If a root were to grow though matey next doors drain it would be down . to him.

It pays to clean gutters out once in a while

 

Once a drain has extended beyond the boundary of your property into a neighbouring property it becomes the responsibility of your Water Authority, likewise a neighbour;s drain, whether it's carries just their surface/soil water or together with that of others from further upstream. If you have a connection to it then you are only responsible for the length from your house to the shared drain that is within your property. The law was changed a few years ago, anything that's solely yours, or shared, as long as it's outside your property boundary is now classed as a public sewer.

 

Yes I know.... I was bound to miss a bit eh ?

But if its within the boundaries its another matter..

For those with soak aways and/or self draining drives a substantial discount can be had if you apply to your water authority.

We have soakaways and we removed our old tarmac drive and put down stone and gravel. So now the water that falls on or over our property does not go down into the public drains.

A large proportion of your water bill is to deal with the so called "surface water disposal". So you can apply to have this element of the bill removed and they refund one years retrospective refund.

We applied and claimed the refund and have had £30 a month taken off our water bill ..