ExTra-
Is that common to have sewer pipes running through people's gardens?
Yes. Quite common for pairs or whole rows of houses to have foul drains linked together along the back then joining the main sewer.
Your solicitor should do a drainage search which will usually show where the drains run. It’s not always comprehensive though.
Ask your surveyor to tell you what they find. They’ll be able to work it all out by lifting covers on inspection chambers.
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The proper way of doing this is to obtain a build-over agreement from the local water authority. The architect or structural engineer working on the extension has to submit drawings of the alternations to the drain layout which then get signed off before works can start.
Our extension would have been on top of a manhole. It was sealed up and a new one put in the garden to give rodding and maintenance access to the drain.
Thames Water will provide an “asset location search” which shows the drains and supply etc (though ours wasn’t accurate at all). Your local authority should be able to provide the same, along with an answer as to whether a build over agreement was issued.
If there’s access from both sides, ie manholes in both neighbours gardens, and at the front, it’ll probably be fine. If they just sealed the manhole up it’s very unlikely anything nasty would make it through the concrete slab floor of a modern building.
See what the water authority say, but I’d use it as a bargaining chip rather than a deal breaker.
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Like who is responsible for which side of the boundary features
If they have written something like "left hand wall belongs to us, right hand wall belongs to neighbours" there is a high chance that it's received wisdom bollocks.
I don't remember seeing any manhole nearby or in the garden
It used to be common to put these under kitchen islands with covers you could lift, but memory tells me that's against regs now?
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Hefty
dbr
NickCJ
You’re over thinking it. At half-three in the morning!
A TA6 can be filled in at any point, most often it’s after an offer is accepted. The other buyer may have backed out before they’d even seen it.
The ‘couldn’t get a mortgage’ line may or may not be true and could mean all manner of things. The bank might have found a CCJ the buyer didn’t know they have, they buyer may have not declared a loan, sometimes buyers don’t even get an agreement before offering, maybe the agent didn’t check last time hence was super keen this time.
Keep working through as diligently as you are and you’ll not miss anything.
On the other point - no need to be there for the survey, indeed many surveyors will insist you’re not.