Problems found after you bought · Missing easements and service rights
When I bought this property, I didn’t know Missing service rights or no build-over agreement could hold up a sale or remortgage. Now I’m stuck.
Would you have bought the property if you had known?
If you had known the rights for the services were missing before you committed, and understood the problems it could cause when you later came to sell or remortgage, would it have changed your decision?
- Would you have paid the same price?
- Would you have wanted it investigated first?
- Would you have walked away?
If knowing about the problem might have changed what you did, the next question is obvious.
Did you receive the right advice when you bought?
You may not know the answer yet. But if nobody explained the problem, or you are now questioning what you were told at the time, that is worth looking at.
You don’t need to know whether anyone was at fault. Tell us what happened and when you bought. We’ll talk it through with you.
Why missing easements or service rights can hold up a sale or remortgage
Every property needs services: water in, drainage out, electricity, gas and telecoms. Those pipes and cables have to run somewhere, and they rarely stop neatly at a boundary. Where private services cross land belonging to someone else, there must be a legal basis for them to remain, be used and be reached for repair. That may include an easement recorded in the title. Utility companies may instead have rights under a wayleave, deed or statutory powers.
The position also works in the other direction. A public sewer, a neighbour’s drain or utility cables may run beneath or across your property. The sewerage undertaker, utility provider or neighbouring owner may have statutory, contractual or private rights to retain, inspect or repair them. Where those rights exist, they may also restrict what you can build.
None of this troubles you while everything works. It surfaces on a sale or remortgage, when a drainage and water search identifies a recorded sewer or main, or questions arise about where private services actually run, and a buyer’s conveyancer has to report on whether the rights match the reality. Requirements differ between lenders.
How the problem usually surfaces
A sewer or main is reported within the property
The search identifies a recorded public sewer or water main within or close to the boundaries, raising questions about its position, access and what may be built nearby.
No build over agreement
An extension or conservatory has been built over or close to a public sewer, and no consent from the water company can be produced.
Pipes crossing a neighbour’s land
The services run across land you do not own, but no corresponding easement is recorded in the title, so the legal basis for their continued use and repair needs establishing.
No right to get in and repair
There may be a right for the pipe to be there, but nothing entitling you onto the land to maintain or replace it when it fails.
Someone else’s services under your garden
A neighbour’s drain or supply crosses your land. There may be rights allowing it to remain and be reached for repair, and those rights may limit what you can build above it.
A wayleave for a pylon or cables
A pylon stands on the land or cables cross it under a wayleave or deed, and it is unclear whether it continues after a transfer or who receives any payment.
What if there is no build-over agreement?
Where an extension or conservatory has been built over or close to a sewer, establish whether the pipe was public at the relevant time and whether approval was required and obtained under the procedure operated by the relevant water company. Planning permission does not itself provide build-over consent, and building-regulations approval does not necessarily establish that the water company’s requirements were satisfied. Depending on the circumstances, possible routes may include confirmation under an applicable protocol, retrospective approval or an indemnity policy where the insurer’s and proposed lender’s requirements permit it. Take advice before contacting the water company, because doing so may affect the availability of insurance. A policy does not authorise the work or remove the water company’s rights.
What you can do about it now
Start by establishing what serves the property and where it runs. The drainage and water search reports recorded public sewers and mains, the title and plan show what was granted or reserved, and a seller may have marked the route of private pipes. Then check the rights in both directions: whether the title lets your services cross other land and lets you enter it for repair, and what anyone else is entitled to run across yours, because that may restrict what you can build.
If there is a wayleave, deed or similar agreement, obtain a copy and check what it permits, whether it continues following a transfer and who is entitled to any payment. The network operator may need to be notified of the change of ownership.
If you are selling, your conveyancer can ask the buyer’s solicitor what remains unresolved and whether it arises from the buyer’s lender’s requirements. If you are remortgaging, your conveyancer can check your proposed lender’s requirements directly.
What happened when you bought?
What the title granted and reserved was a matter of record when you bought, and a drainage and water search would ordinarily have been carried out. That search may have identified recorded sewers and mains, and the title may have shown what rights existed, although they would not necessarily have established the exact route of private pipes or the basis on which they had been used. The questions are what was reported, what was asked of the seller, whether any consent or policy was obtained, and what you were told.
Several records from the time may matter, and some may survive. The drainage and water search shows what was reported about sewers and mains. The title and any transfer show what rights were granted or reserved for services. The replies your conveyancer received may show what the seller said about pipes and cables, and any plan they marked up. There may be a build over agreement, a wayleave, or an indemnity policy. The lender’s historical written instructions may also be difficult to recover, because they are revised regularly and superseded versions disappear from public view.
Was this property really mortgageable when you bought?
Getting a mortgage when you bought does not necessarily tell you how readily mortgageable the property was across the wider market. There are two historical questions worth asking.
What did your own lender’s written requirements say about easements and service rights when you bought? And what express requirements did other lenders have recorded at the same time?
Lenders’ written requirements were not necessarily uniform, and their wording changed over time. That means both which lender you used and when you bought can matter.
Lenders set out in writing what they expect a conveyancer to do about particular features of a property. Those instructions are revised regularly, and superseded versions drop out of public view, which can make a question as simple as what was my conveyancer told about service rights in the year I bought? surprisingly difficult to answer from the sources available today. Lexsure has retained historical lender-specific conveyancing requirements since April 2007, so where the records permit they can help reconstruct what your lender’s requirements said at the time and how that compared with the wider lending market.
Across that period, 33 lenders in our covered archive population have had express requirements about easements and service rights on record, addressed across 3 separate places in their instructions. The earliest express appearance we can identify in the material we hold dates from 2008; the most recent recorded change of wording is 2026.
Two points of precision, because they matter. “Earliest identified” means the earliest express appearance in the material we hold, not the date any requirement began. And where our material for a particular lender and period is incomplete, that lender is left out of these figures rather than counted as having said nothing. We do not treat an incomplete record as showing that the lender had no requirement.
So, when did you buy?
Changing the year here doesn’t send us an enquiry or tell us who you are.
An example of the kind of wording in force 2014 to 2018
One lender’s requirements, not named, by way of illustration. Requirements were not uniform and this is not the wording that applied to your purchase — that depends on your lender and your completion date.
No lender handbook Part-2 (specific) requirements were published prior to . But professionals were still under a duty of care on this topic. It is still worth speaking to us even if the purchase predates .
If we find no express requirement for your lender
Where our material for your lender and period is complete, the answer may simply be that no express wording about service rights appears in it. Where our material is incomplete, we treat that as a gap in what we hold, not as evidence that your lender said nothing.
Either way, the lender’s instructions are only one part of the record from the time.
The wider picture
Historical lender requirements can help us understand how mortgageable the property was when you bought. The conveyancing file and the advice given to you also matter.
Lexsure holds historical Report on Title material: the reports conveyancers sent to homebuyers, going back years. That material shows the kinds of easement and service rights issues that were being addressed when firms reported to buyers, and it is a second and separate record from what lenders required.
What served the property, and where
Were you told what the drainage and water search showed, and where the pipes and cables serving the property actually ran?
Whether the rights were checked
Was it established whether the title gave rights for the services to be there, to be used, and to be reached for repair?
Build over consent
Where work had been built over or close to a sewer, was consent from the water company sought, and were you told if none existed?
Others’ rights over your land
Were you told what anyone else was entitled to run across the property, and how that might restrict building on it?
Whether the effect on selling was explained
Were you told the position on services could be raised again on a future sale or remortgage, and could matter to a buyer’s lender?
These are examples of issues addressed in historical conveyancing material, not a checklist of what every purchaser should have been told. What mattered in an individual purchase depended on the circumstances and on what was known at the time.
So even if your mortgage completed, or there is nothing unusual in your lender’s historical requirements, it can still be worth talking to us about what happened.
Could this problem have been seen coming?
The relevant starting point is what was known, or could reasonably have been identified, when you bought.
What did the drainage and water search show? What did the title grant? What was in the conveyancing file? What were mortgage lenders requiring at the time? What kinds of easement and service rights issues were conveyancing firms addressing with homebuyers? And what were you actually told?
Taken together, that can help build a picture of whether the problem you are facing today was already something that should have been considered when you bought.
Did you receive the right advice?
What the historical evidence can tell us
Where the relevant lender and period are covered, we may be able to establish what that lender’s conveyancing requirements said when you bought, and how that compared with the wider record at the time.
- That does not by itself establish that anyone was negligent, or that you have a claim. Those questions need the original file and legal advice.
- The absence of express wording does not establish that the lender accepted the issue.
- What your conveyancer had to tell your lender and what they had to tell you are different questions, and the second depends on the retainer and the circumstances.
Time limits apply, and in some cases the date on which you first knew enough about the problem matters as well as the date you bought, which is why we ask about both. Our full methodology, including how we treat gaps in the record, is set out in the archive and its limits. Where a solicitor later needs formal historical evidence, Lexsure can provide source-evidenced historical lender information.
Sources and review
This page is about easements for pipes, cables, drains and other services. Where the issue is the right to get to the property on foot or by vehicle, see no legal right of access; where the property is not on the public sewer at all, see septic tanks and private drainage. Guidance here about the present problem is general information. It is not legal advice about your property.
Requirements and procedures for building over or close to a sewer differ between water companies and depend on the status of the pipe and the date and nature of the work: see Water UK guidance for homeowners. The definition of wayleave income and its tax treatment are addressed in HMRC guidance on wayleaves. This page states no distances, dates or lender requirements as general rules, and the position must be reverified at each review.
Historical lender information is drawn from Lexsure’s archive of lender-specific conveyancing requirements, maintained since April 2007. Figures on this page state the population they are drawn from.