Neighbor renovation affect me, how?

[sing 0]

Need some advice.

Neighbor is doing a rebuilt of house. Problem with my neighbor house is that it is connected to my IC. To complicate matters, the manhole connected to the IC is also in my house. Both IC and manholes are located in my house backyard.

So what is my rights? My neighbor is going to make a new IC for the new house, so will need to access the manhole in my house. Now my backyard is all tiled, and will need to destroy it to get the  manhole. Should the contractor do up the tiles after breaking them? Problem is my entire front and backyard are using the same tiles, so should the contractor re-do the entire tiles for front and back?

TIA 

[snoozee 97]

question is why is your manhole tiled over in the first place? the manhole doesn't belong to you even though it's in your property and anyone including PUB can request for access to the manhole for maintenance purpose. so if today the request if from PUB and not your neighbour's contractor, you would most likely need to hack the tiles to allow for the access to the manhole. On compensation, note again that the manhole and ICs should not be sealed up or tiled over since they are meant to be accessible. if you had chose to tile them over then it's your own fault for doing it in the first place. Imagine now your house has a sewage choke issue but because your IC and manhole is sealed up, you will be unable to open up either one to check and clear the choke.

On your rights, owner consent will need to be obtained before any works can be done on your property. Since you are unlikely to grant consent, the contractor just have to suck thumb and find another manhole to access. I believe the contractor needs to access the manhole in your property mainly to do CCTV inspection of the sewer before construction begins. They will also need to do another CCTV inspection after the construction is completed as these CCTV footage needs to be submitted to PUB to show that nothing is damaged during the construction. Even if your neighbour is shifting or constructing a new IC, they can do the connection to the existing sewer on their side. the problem is the termination of the existing sewer connection from their side to your IC which in this case, will likely be only terminated on their side. However in the event of any chokes on your side in future and if the sewerage somehow goes through the termination point (failed), I do not know if you may be liable for any damages to their property since sewage will be flowing under their house due to the termination not being able to be done on your side.

Even if you grant access for them to do the work, legally the contractor will only need to make good on what was damaged during the works. meaning if you want them to redo all the tiles for front and back yard, you need to negotiate with the contractor and pay them for the work and materials.

[sing 0]

A clarification. No tiles were laid over the IC and manholes. What I meant was to reach them, my backyard tiles have to be hacked. 

So if the contractor chooses another manhole to connect their IC to and for the sewer termination to be done properly on my IC, I believe their contractor will have to access the IC in my property. So in this situation if I grant access to the contractor they will have to make good on what is damaged during the work?

Now if the above is not a feasible option and the only way is to connect to the manhole in my house, assuming I grant access to the contractor to hack the tiles all the way to the manhole, how much could I demand that the original tiles and color be restored? I mean, if the contractor were to make good of what is damaged surely the new tiles will not be exactly the same and may not blend well with the existing ones. 

[snoozee 97]

if there's no tiles laid over the manhole and IC, then there's no need to hack the floor and tiles to access them at all. the IC cover and manhole cover can be opened freely and closed back without causing any damages unless you had laid tiles over them which will mean hacking will be needed.

a manhole allows PUB or any authorised parties to access the sewer pipes so that pipe inspection could be done. IC connections are not done via the manhole.

the IC in a house is the main connection point where all the sanitary pipes will connect to. If you have more than 1 IC in the house, there will be one last IC which will connect to the main public sewer pipe and all other ICs will connect to this last IC before discharge to the main public sewer pipe.

Some old houses have shared last IC where 2 houses next to each other will share a common last IC to connect to the main public sewer (like in your case). If the house which is utilising the neighbour's IC undergoes redevelopment (as in your neighbour case now), the developer will need to create a new connection to the main public sewer and terminate the existing connection from the shared last IC. The connection to the main public sewer will be done in the new development and not via the neighbouring property. Unless you are so unlucky that the main public sewer does not run through your neighbour's property and only runs through your property then your neighbor's contractor will need to check the SIP on where the sewer pipe runs through and see if the connection can be done via public land behind the property.

If you look at my drawing below, what could be the case is simply the contractor needs to open your manhole to do a pre-con CCTV survey now (and later a post-con CCTV survey). After their last IC is constructed, connected to the public sewer (NOT within your land) , your last IC will then need to be opened up so that the existing connection from the neighbour side to your last IC is terminated properly by pouring in concrete, etc to fill up the pipe.

Again, IF you do not have tiles or any flooring sealing up the last IC and manhole in your house, there's NO need for the contractor to hack your floor at all to do their job.

Before you jump into a fit and think of what you can demand on the contractor to fix your house, I would suggest you talk to the contractor and find out exactly what they need to do within your property. As I've mentioned, you have every right to deny them access to your house. The contractor will just have to find the next manhole to access to perform their CCTV survey and not bother you at all. However, as mentioned, if the termination is not done on your side, you may or may not be liable for your neighbour's property damage should the termination fail in future and your waste flows over to their side.

 

[sing 0]

Thanks for your detailed and clear explanation.

Unfortunately the public sewer does run through my property as shown in my drawing below. So in event of a complete rebuilt my neighbor contractor will need to connect to the public sewer via the public land in front of my house. Otherwise, if he wants to connect the public sewer via my manhole then hacking of my backyard will need to be done.

Do note that both my neighbor and my house share the same last IC, which is located in my house backyard. There is only ONE waste pipe from my neighbor to this IC, which is then connected to the public sewer.

My preference is not to touch anything, no hacking. So if I insist that no access is allowed into my property the contractor will need to find other way, by all means, to access the public sewer. My only worry then is to sealed of the existing waste pipe from my neighbor to my IC, which does not require any hacking and just pouring cement into the pipe.

Please help me verify that my understanding is correct?

[snoozee 97]

I suppose you have the SIP on hand which is why you are able to provide the layout of your existing situation.

As mentioned, you can deny them access. If I'm in your situation, I would not grant them access to hack my floor to do their sewer connection as well. However, since the existing sewer connection needs to be terminated properly, you have to grant them limited access to do this. Whether you want to let them open your manhole to perform CCTV survey is up to you.

Your neighbour's new IC can be constructed in their driveway and then connect to the main sewer which is running through the public road/land.  How they can do it is another question as a sewer connection should be direct so it could be challenging. Anyway, doing the connection outside is the only way they can do it since they can't touch your property at all. Of cos they will need to submit the plans to PUB for approval first. With regards to sealing of the existing connection, there's some standard procedures from PUB on how it should be done.

If I were you, I would request for a method statement from the contractor and signed by a QP on how they are going to do the sealing. This is just to protect yourself in case something happens in future with the termination point. As the termination will actually be done inside the IC, any hacking (if needed) will be done inside the IC. I'm not sure if any hacking inside the IC will be done but there could be some minor hacking to roughen the surface of the IC so the cement could adhere properly. The exact details on how the sealing will be done should be described in the method statement from the contractor/QP.

[sing 0]

Yes, I do have knowledge of the sewer since PUB did access my property many years ago and did an inspection of the public sewer. I remember going into their van and look at the video of the tiny machine crawling through the sewer. Was surprised that the sewer was quite 'clean'.

Many thanks for your suggestion. Really very helpful! I was wondering if I do grant them access to my compound to connect to the public sewer via the manhole, what can I request from the contractor? I know it may sound unreasonable to re-tile the entire driveway and backyard (since they share the same tiles), but to do anything less will mean compromise on the blending of the color of the entire outdoor landscape. In your experience how do you think it will proceed?

I have a feeling that my neighbor may choose to access the public sewer through my property over constructing a new IC due to cost. In that case, demanding a re-tile of the entire driveway and backyard may turn out to cost about the same or even less than the latter.  

Edited September 18, 2023 by sing

[snoozee 97]

it does not cost that much to construct a new IC. When I rebuilt my house, I shifted my last IC to another location and constructed another IC to connect to the last IC as well. I think the cost to construct an IC would be just a few K which might be cheaper than redoing all your outdoor tiles for your house.

in any case, if I'm not wrong, every landed house must have its own last IC built within its own land lot. So there's no way to save the cost of construction of last IC. The only question is where this last IC will connect to. PUB regulations state that as much as possible/feasible, the connection must be done to the public sewer on public land. So in this case, when the QP submits the plan to PUB for approval, it is likely that the plan will be to connect the last IC to the public sewer pipe outside the private land lots. Unless there's compelling reasons why the connection on public land cannot be done, then PUB will allow for connection to be done on private land subjected to the land owner's consent.

[sing 0]

Thanks for sharing such great information. If my neighbor chooses not to rebuild and just to construct a new IC within their own compound, I believe it will need to connect to the public sewer over my house. Based on my own house design, and I could only guess my neighbor house design, I figure it would make it barely feasible, or very very expensive, for my neighbor to construct a new IC and connect to the public sewer over public land.

I would prefer my neighbor to access the sewer over public land obviously. I hope there is no regulation that stipulates I have to grant access to my neighbor contractor if they choose otherwise.

[snoozee 97]

if your neighbour does not rebuilt, then there's no need to construct any new IC at all. everything can remain as it. It's only when the house undergoes rebuilt (and maybe reconstruction) that PUB will stipulate that the owner/developer construct a new IC so that the existing shared arrangement can be terminated.

As for how much the new sewer connection will cost, it is subjective since many factors will come into play.

As I've mentioned many times, you have every legal right to disallow any contractor to access your property to do any works. Even if you said OK today and changed your mind tomorrow, the contractor will not be able to hold to your original consent since you've already changed your mind to withdraw the consent to access your property.