Easement registration for rain water

I was wondering if there are members who have experience registering easement with neighboring properties for the purpose of running PVC pipes and draining rain water, preferably in NSW.

Anyone who has experience with the process from approaching the neighbour all the way to legals (if needs be) and registration of positive covenant etc.......

 

Speak to people involved, they are not likely to say yes unless money involved & you can't force someone to allow use of their land for your stormwater.

If they are ok with it or you have an agreement, you would need a solicitor involved and a surveyor, and council will want plans and have to approve.

 

Only requires a surveyor to draft the S88B.
If it's a single dwelling then you should be able to install a pit and pump out to the street.

 

I am mainly interested to see how people have approached the neighbours, how much $$$$$ is good to offer at first and how you take them to court if they disagree. And also the actual registration process.....


Mainly if anyone has actually done it, I know the basics otherwise...

 

Go round and talk to them.

Most likely your going to have to compensate.

Court, well, get ready to flush some money away & the land owner will still be likely have order to be compensated, they would have to be being unreasonable to lose here, you would have to make sure you have done all you can and there is no other viable option IMO.

I would first make sure council will allow what your thinking of or planning, then just go talk to all involved in a normal manner & see where your at from there.

 

Agree with the above, go and talk to the neighbour and sus them out.

Before you do, look at what is on the land you want to place the easement over/put the drainage in. Is there a shed or lovely manicured garden beds or is it just grass/dirt?
If there is something they consider valuable tell the neighbour you will pay to bore (if possible) instead of ripping up their land to lay pipe.

If there is a shed or structure did it have the appropriate permit (if needed)?

I approached a clients neighbours for a sewer extension a couple months ago, but it had an easement. They had water tanks over the easement. We offered to bore, but then someone across the road did an extension past our lot that we are connecting into, great timing for our client who saved 40-50k. I found the neighbours receptive and happy if we paid for everything, but we had an easement, if we didn't, i dont like our chances.

 

I have done the initial investigation, council doesnt have an issue, its not really up to them any way.

The easement must run across 2 properties and I have already approached both of them and have offered them money plus returning everything to its original condition.

in order to find out whats on the way we will need to do a survey which means we need access but before access we need their permission. I have checked the sites via google maps and except for a couple of trees everything else seems to be normal.


What I am after, if someone has already done this, is the following:

What tactics they used to try and negotiate directly (i.e: what they offered)

If direct negotiations didnt work how did they exercise the legal avenue? and how long did it take

Once permission was granted, how was it registered and how long did it take?

Any members here that may have done this or specialize in doing this sort of thing?

 

You have no legal right to use the neighbour's land or access their drainage.

Once consent is granted, you need to be on your surveyor's back to get the plans and S88B drafted and signed by neighbour and mortgagee, then lodge & registered at the LTO.

 

....and they can (& do) change their minds in the middle of the process.

 

I think if I was legally able to access land then there would be no need to make this topic

There is a process, they can't just refuse to give access. The case can be heard by a magistrate and over 90% of the time won, albeit the neighbors get money for it.

I am assuming not many members on this forum have done easement works?

 

There is no absolute right for adjoining owners to drain onto someone else's land regardless of how much you are willing to pay for the benefit. Compulsory acquisition only applies to the government.

On what basis would you expect to have a right upheld by a court to take someone else's land?

Is this for a multi-dwelling?

 

Have you spoken to your local land surveyor? What did they say?

 

We are looking into this now on our block, Our council wont allow a charged system and since our block slopes 500mm to the rear, we have to go through 1 of our neighbours properties, which have a 3.2m fall to their street frontage from about half way through their block.

We have been advised and are doing
1. Speak to neighbours and go with a plan of works, possible disruption to their property, how we will make good or better any gardens or fences and where the line will run.
2. Once they have time to absorb the info and get advice, we can the follow up with another chat and this time we have a form, which they can sign giving us approval, subject to $$ and the purposed route or rejecting our offer.
3. our case we are now looking at drilling from our yard along the fence line of the two properties and sinking a small pit in the front corner of their property, adds $20,000 to the cost but not repair woks except a small corner in the front.

If they reject it, we can the take it to court where the outcome is usually, (if you are running your easement inside the normal zone of influence, in our case under the fence line), in our favour, But before you go to court
1. Have the land valued, so the court can work out if the payment you offered was reasonable for the amount of potential loss that the registered easement will have.
2. well draw plans that it can show the route and what part of the block is affected
3. Other alternatives considered and tried before approaching neighbours

We have been told by 3 different builders and one Surveyor, although the court would rule in our favour the cost will make the project not viable and it can add 18mths + to the project.

So as a back up we are doing a bit of a redesign / rethink to pull the duplex forward as most of our slope happens from just past our half way point, we wanted to set it back more to allow a longer driveway so i could fit a car in front of the garage and still have room behind the car as i have a boat as well.

 

@jeffb5ltr - option 2 keeping your drainage as high as possible and draining to your street frontage is the cheapest and most efficient outcome. If you have a s/w pit in the street,you may be able to break into it for the point of discharge.

 

Unfortunately our current home has a soak pit in the back yard and nothing to the street, we are also seeing what option a Hyd Engineer can come up with, considering its currently a single storey and we are building a 2 storey duplex, recycling grey water for toilets, irrigation and tanks, so hopefully we can get a solution approved.

I can see why not everyone develops, its hurdle after hurdle and most times its just about finding the best solution which sometimes means talking to other people outside the builders normal / prefered providers.

 

Do you mind me asking which council? you can PM me if you dont feel comfortable sharing here.

Its a far fetched idea but have you tried running the design by a couple of other hydraulic engineers or architects? sometimes what is not possible with one engineer, becomes possible with another.

Quite often, unless if you are willing to pay above and beyond what it is worth, neighbour will say no.

You must run along the fence any way as this usually wont impact the future development of their property because councils have at least a meter set back from boundaries anyway. Most people dont know this and thats why they say no to easement.

I am not sure what kind of pit you are appointing but 20k sounds quite high (although possible).

Have you spoken to any solicitors who specialize in arguing this type of cases in court or are you going to go with a solicitor that you know and have worked with before?

I have a very similar site, ideally I could just cut and fill the back of my site a bit to be able to drain water and as my site is fairly flat, I should have been able to drain onto the street. However the big kicker is that the council where I am forces people to make an inground detention tank. They dont allow a pump system and they dont let you have the tank outside the ground. Therefore by the time they build the tank into ground, the bottom of the tank falls below the kerb side.

So either I have to appoint the tank at the very back of the property and drain from it through the two neighboring side properties OR what I have discovered myself is I can appoint a pit on the street infront of my property which is slightly deeper than the bottom of the tank. Drain onto this pit and then run a 55 meter concrete pipe from this pit down to an existing pit down the road. Its a faster approach that doesnt need easement but it can be very costly (i.e: between 100k to 170k). Maybe that may work for you as well?

For now I am trying to get a more exact price on the second solution mentioned above while testing the waters with these neighbors. If the cost of the second solution is too high and neighbors say no then I have to prepare a court case.

 

@Tenex - what do you mean by 'appoint' a tank? Do you mean build?

If you have the ability to drain directly to the street, do so. Pump out systems require maintenance which is why councils don't approve their installation for multi unit dwellings as they don't get serviced.

Neighbours do not have to give you an easement to drain (though you could buy their property, create an easement and resell.

 

He is suggesting you buy the property, do as you need, then re sell.

I know people who have done it this way, when nothing else worked.

 

$20k is mostly for the drilling as we have a lot of rock and its over 45mtrs long and then the small pit in the front yard and connecting to the street. That doesn't include any payment for the owner and the $$ to register the easement. I am lucky as i have two neighbours to chose from, one is a owner occupier the other is in a trust as a investment.

Not yet, will avoid getting the Solicitors in at all cost as they just ramp up any cost.

 

@Tenex - solicitors in this instance would kust **** your money into the breeze. You have no legal right to drain over someone else's land until you have reached agreement with the owner, signed a binding heads of agreement and paid the owner.