Would you allow an easement for the neighbors water pipe?

[Tamara R.]

Schitty situation. We just purchased a property to brrr. Last week the neighbor up the hill had a clogged toilet and had the rotorooter guys come out. When they cleared their drain our basement immediately filled up with poo...theirs. We found out that we were on a shared line we didn’t know about when we bought it and they were hooked into ours. I guess they used to do that a long time ago. The rotorooter guys said we were responsible for half the bill since it was a shared line even tho we never called them or had a problem and now they caused a giant poo mess in our basement bc tHe poo ball then blocked up at the end of our pipe where it hooks into city sewer and wasn’t connected well. We had to have a plumber come emergently and didn’t have time to ask permission to go in on it with the neighbor and just found out it was shared anyhow. We then had to have the reclamation people come out after we spent three hours shoveling the poo out. Our Insurance is deciding if they will pay for the reclamation cleaning and damages inside our basement but said they don’t pay to have the pipe fixed, only for our stuff that was damaged so the plumbing bill is on us. It’s between 3000-10000$ and digging up the entire basement now. Now the neighbor doesn’t want to pay the plumbing bill to fix our shared line bc it is in our basement and not in their property. We don’t want their poo in our basement again if their is ever another clog and we don’t want to pay for the line anytime they have a problem with it. We are down hill and they are above us so we don’t really care if there is a problem on that end bc it is just them we don’t share their part. They only use ours. We are probably going to have to cap it to work on it this week. Also it will be very difficult if possible at all for them to plug into the city sewer stub unless they go thru their basement and basement walls without an easement in our yard which would be much easier. I heard not to give an easement bc then your basically giving a part of your property up and it brings down the property value?

Does anyone know about these things or have dealt with them?

Should I give an easement if they ask or can the city force me to give an easement?

Should they have to pay half the bill to fix the shared part of the pipe in our basement? What about the damages to our stuff in the basement?

Any help or insight into this topic would be so much appreciated. Shite does roll down hill lol. I’ll remember that for the next house I buy.

[JD Martin]

OK. Thoughts in no particular order:

1. Depending on how long the two houses have been hooked together, they may have good argument for a prescribed easement. Meaning their continuous use of that line for X years gives them the right to continue to use it and maintain it for that purpose. 

2. If they have nothing in writing they would have to get a court to agree that they had that right. Until they could get it done, there's virtually nothing they could do if you capped their line and told them to crap in the yard. 

3. The city cannot force you to give them an easement. Nor can the court. The only thing the court could do is declare there is an easement there because it's been in use for enough years. In that case, the court would only be affirming their limited right to use your property for their sewer line and to maintain the line.

4. If you cap their line and they sue for the prescribed easement you would definitely want to counter-sue for your damages. They cannot have it both ways - free access to your line through your basement and house and no responsibility for damages.

Running utilities I have dealt with this exact same situation a number of times. I know of at least two instances where the homeowner got into it with their neighbor, went out in the yard and found the shared line, cut it at the property line and capped their end. Nothing the other property owner could do about it except get an emergency connection to the sewer system through another avenue while they worked out a solution. 

If they have another way to access the sewer system that doesn't involve going through your yard, I would cap it on your property and make them take it. That's their problem if if costs more money. What you have right now is known as a private sewer system, and there's nothing good that's going to come out of it as you've discovered. There are reasons that virtually all sewer systems today require each homeowner to have their own tap. You've discovered the reasons.