Concrete over drainage easement

[Chagrin888]

Hi all

first time posting.

I am interested in buying a property (NSW) which is pretty much perfect except for the fact that the owners have built a concrete pavement over the drainage easement without permission.

Can anyone advise if this should be a deal breaker? Does anyone know the chances of the council asking us to dig up the pavement? And is that the only repercussion or are we likely to get a fine too? As there is a lot of interest in this property I presume other potential buyers have now alerted the council to the fact that the easement has been built over.

Thanks

Clare

 

[Scott No Mates]

Providing they haven't built the garage over it, what's the problem. The person benefiting from the easement can access it (albeit with a concrete saw).

 

[bashworth]

Pavement construction isn't building over and is acceptable. The chance of the owner of the pipe wanting to dig up the pipe is about 0.001%. Most repairs these days are done from the inside.

 

[AlmostBob]

ditto the above\
have had a repair done, on our easement on a neighbours property, the sewer pipe was sleeved from out in the street
After we asked the neighbour for access, just to be polite, it was not needed,
(really cool machinery)

 

[Bhp19]

Sorry to hijack but what would/could happen if there was a garage built over a stormwater easement?

 

[AlmostBob]

worst case:
they may dig to expose the pipe if required
my backhoe has no problem digging through 12inches of reinforced concrete and Territory dirt compacted by 40 years of road trains
a garage, easy

 

[Scott No Mates]

The issue is that you may not have sufficient headroom for the excavator to get into the structure and to raise the bucket or arm. Oops, there goes the roof.

 

[AlmostBob]

that wasn't an issue, I'd planned to start at the roof

 

[knightm]

that wasn't an issue, I'd planned to start at the roof

That will work every time. The roof was probably superfluous anyway.