When we moved into our house several years ago we noticed a 10mm black plastic tube teed off our back garden tape and disappear under the ground. I always assumed it was part of an old garden irrigation system that didn't work any more any ignored it.
When investigating things for some other plumbing work, we have now discovered that this little plastic tube is actually supplying the house on the back section behind us with all of their water.
The result is that all of the back neighbors water runs through our internal plumbing before it goes to their house, meaning when they have a shower etc our water pressure drops.
To help in identifying what this pipe was for I installed a ball valve on it so I could turn it on and off to see what it affected, so now (if I wanted) I could actually shut off their water from my own private property.
I informed the owner of the rear property of how their water is being supplied (who were also unaware of this), and they were initially happy to look at getting this rectified with a new water main to their property run from the street. However, after having received a quote for what it will cost, they are now saying it is not something they will consider because of the cost involved.
Questions:
- Can this current setup possibly be legal?
- If it is not legal, is the onus entirely on them to rectify the issue?
- If it is legal, am I out of luck if they won't do anything?
- What are my options if they don't want to play ball?
I want to be reasonable and not antagonize the neighbors, and also don't want to force them to do it straight away as it likely needs to be budgeted for. For these reasons am reluctant to contact the council yet in case they then say it needs to be rectified immediately.
Any help or advice would be great.
Thanks
Paul
EDIT: It is a cross lease section, where ours is the front (and much older) house. So section was presumably subdivided many years ago to build the back house.