Property Advice: Who is responsible for clearing a communal drain

What to do when ‘out of sight’ is not out of mind? SCSI surveyor Brigid Browne does a deep dive

Just some of the wipes cleared out of Cork's sewers. Picture: Simon Lyons

Hi there, I hope you can help with our rather unsavoury query. We have a drains problem with our home. It’s an end of terrace 1950s property, built by the local council originally and now all in private ownership. There’s a communal drain running across the back of all eight houses before hitting a larger sewer. To put it as delicately as possible, there is waste backing up at our end of the terrace, and it is supposed to flow in the other direction.
We have rodded it as far as we can, and well past our own boundary, so the issue is somewhere ‘down the line’. It is a problem only affecting a few homes at our end. There is one unoccupied house close by as its owner, one of the few remaining original occupants, is in a nursing home. The problem it seems is beyond our property, so our house insurance isn’t covering any remedial action.
We are all good neighbours and a few of us at ‘our end’ have chipped in before for drain issues to be sorted, but this is now affecting us more than them. A visit from a drain’s specialist company costs hundreds of euro each time and will be more if cameras unearth remedial action to be taken.
Pardon the pun, but we are not flush with cash, and we have literally put money down the drain again and again. What can we do? Especially if the problem is a collapsed drain by the vacant home next to us, or on its boundary with next home? Have the council any responsibility?
— Thomas, Waterford

Firstly, congratulations Thomas for your clear description of what is a delicate subject. You clearly haven’t lost your sense of humour!