Hi,
I am sure this topic has been posted before sometime ago, but I thought I would get an updated opinion / help from someone who knows about garden surface water issues.
Me and my wife have recently put in an offer on a property to buy and everything seems to be going well. We had a surveyor carry out a building survey yesterday (18th Jan) and he mentioned about the surface water.
We had already noticed this when we viewed the property but because we loved the property and the area, we weren't too concerned. The vendor already had quotes to get this fixed and reduced the price further based on the quote. One of the quotes they have had was to fit a soakaway in the garden. My surveyor said that a soakaway will NOT fix the issue as the water will fill up eventually and cause it to rise again, because of the clay soil.
Whilst the vendor has reduced the price of the property from the quote of the soakaway, this quote no longer makes sense as I have been told by the surveyor that to fix the issue a proper drainage system needs to be put in place not just the property we are purchasing, but on the neighbours properties too.
I then contacted about 3-4 other specialists who have all said a French type draining system is required to fix the issue. I have been researching a lot online and found that a drain pipe requires it to link to some type of existing drainage system. What I don't know is, if the current drainage system at the back of the property is a foul water drain or a mixed one. Researching online again, I found that it is illegal to connect anything to the foul water drainage.
Additionally, the water surface is near the back of the property, which to be suggests that the ground slopes to the back of the garden. This then made me question, even if trenches were dug to fit a French type drain system, how would the water travel to the existing drain system from the rear of the garden, to the drain system located closer to the property? Does this mean the trenches have to be built in such a way that they start shallow at the rear of the property and then go deeper as it gets closer to the property so that it slopes the water towards the drainage?
Here are some links to the surface water in the garden, along with a picture of the rear of the property.
https://ibb.co/kSWvYFT
https://ibb.co/bFBh2Pr
https://ibb.co/wzmQVgS
Any advise would be much appreciated
