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Sewage adoption agreements are covered by s104 Water Industry Act 1991. In essence, anyone who is constructing a sewer can ask an undertaker to enter into an agreement where the undertaker will make a vesting declaration, adopting the sewer at some specified date after the work is completed. Needless to say, it is important to reach agreement on this before the development commences. Ofwat guidance says that sewers should be adopted if all these criteria are satisfied:
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If a property does not have mains drainage, then (assuming no s104 agreement for adoption is in place) it will be important to check the type of drainage. This is because it may be necessary to obtain consent from the Environment Agency (if the system is discharging effluent into the land, or into an adjacent water course).
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Do not forget that there is usually a £5,000 liability limit in respect of the standard drainage and water inquiries (CON 29 DW) for residential properties.
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As flooding becomes more of an issue for conveyancers, to what extent can you rely upon the flood map posted on the Environment Agency website? It is important to understand the map’s limitations: it does not show potential flooding from ground or surface water;
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If an Energy Performance Certificate has not been produced, is it acceptable to put a clause in the contract saying that the EPC will be produced before completion?
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The fee for a personal search of the Local Land Charges Register doubles to £22 on 1 January 2010.
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What is a ‘charter street’? The answer is that it is one of the original streets, alleys, or passages in the City of London that existed prior to the Great Fire of London. The complication from a conveyancing point of view is that the normal rules on ownership of the highway do not apply.
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The transitional rules allowed HIPs to include incomplete personal local searches, provided the omissions were covered by insurance. However, that exception came to an end on 6 April.
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The CA has given a judgment that is of potentially enormous significance for credit control and customer service departments. What the CA found was that computer-generated correspondence from British Gas could amount to harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and so entitle the customer to damages.
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If you carry out a coal mining search, what is the scope of the protection that you (or your client) gets from the Coal Authority?
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A Property Information Questionnaire has to be included in a Home Information Pack when the first point of marketing is on or after 6 April.
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OLA 1957 requires the occupier to take reasonable care that a visitor ‘will be reasonably safe in using the premises for the purposes for which he is invited or permitted by the occupier to be there’. But, what happens if the location is a historical monument, or some other place of intrinsic ‘social value’?
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Under RIBA Standard Contract Conditions, an architect retains ownership of the copyright of the design in his drawings and plans, and therefore has control over their use. But, if the client has paid the architect’s fees, then there will normally be a licence to use the design for its intended purpose and site, and accordingly the client can sell it on to future site owners when the property is sold (and those owners can then amend the designs as they see fit).
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Suppose you are acting for a seller who is the administrator of the estate of a relative, and probate has not yet been granted. Is an HIP needed? The answer is yes, but the sale statement can explain why the seller is different from the registered owner (there is no need to wait for the grant of probate). [2008] LSG 27 November 20.
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