Who is responsible for a blocked drain?
People pay for callouts every week that Anglian Water would have done for free. The rule changed in 2011 and most homeowners never heard about it. Pick a section of the drain below to find out who owns it.
Cross-section of a typical house
Click a section, or use the buttons below
Choose part of the drain run
Start with where the problem shows itself. If only one sink is slow, it's inside the house. If an outside gully or manhole is filling up, work along the run from the house towards the road.
What changed in 2011
The private sewer transfer
Before October 2011, homeowners owned the drain all the way to the public sewer, including the length under the pavement they had never seen and could not reach. Miles of it were in poor condition and nobody was maintaining it.
The transfer moved most of that pipework to the water companies. In this area that means Anglian Water. Two things transferred: any pipe shared by more than one property, and any pipe beyond your own boundary. Everything within your boundary that serves only your house stayed yours.
The short version
Yours, or Anglian Water's?
Yours to pay for
- Waste pipes and the soil stack inside the house
- The drain in your garden or driveway, as long as it only takes waste from your property
Anglian Water's to clear, free
- Any pipe carrying waste from two or more properties, even under your own garden
- Anything past your boundary, including the lateral drain under the pavement
- The public sewer in the road
Exceptions
Where it gets less clear
Newer estates. Pipework laid after 1 July 2011 did not transfer. On recent developments the drainage is often still private until the developer formally hands it over.
Off-mains properties. Plenty of homes in the villages around Haverhill run on a septic tank or treatment plant. Those systems are private from end to end, including the tank and the soakaway.
Flats and shared driveways. Where a block or terrace shares a run, it almost always counts as a sewer and transferred. Managing agents sometimes bill leaseholders for work that was never theirs to pay for.
Rented homes. Blocked drains are generally the landlord's responsibility, unless the tenant caused it.
Still not sure whose it is?
Ring us and describe the symptoms — which fixtures are affected, whether the outside gully is filling, whether next door has the same problem. That's usually enough to tell which side of the boundary the problem is on, and it costs nothing to ask.