Who pays for a water leak

The division[edit]

Two definitions do all the work. The Water Industry Act 1991 defines the service pipe by the pressure it carries, not by who owns it or where it runs.^[1] The Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 then define the supply pipe as so much of any service pipe as is not vested in the water undertaker.^[2] What remains — the length that is vested in the undertaker — is what the industry calls the communication pipe, a term with no statutory definition at all.

So the question of who pays reduces to a question of vesting at the point of the leak. The undertaker repairs and pays for its own length; the owner is responsible for the supply pipe.

The stop tap is a marker, not the test[edit]

In most modern connections the undertaker's length runs from the main in the highway to a stop tap at or near the boundary, and ownership does change there. That is why the external stop tap is universally used as the marker, and why it is right often enough to be a useful rule of thumb.

It is not the legal test. Older connections, service pipes shared between several properties, and pipes altered during past works can all place the vesting boundary somewhere other than the tap. Where a leak sits close to the boundary and responsibility is disputed, the question to answer is which party the pipe is vested in at the point of the leak — a question about the history of the connection, not about where a valve happens to sit.^[2] This is the single point most commonly got wrong.

Obligations on the owner[edit]

Because the supply pipe is not the undertaker's, the requirements of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 fall on the person installing or using the fittings: a fitting must be of an appropriate quality and standard and suitable for the circumstances in which it is used, and must not cause waste, misuse, undue consumption, contamination or erroneous measurement of water.^[3]

Where water is being wasted, section 75 of the Water Industry Act 1991 gives undertakers powers to prevent damage and to take steps to prevent contamination and waste.^[4] A continuing leak on a customer's supply pipe can therefore be more than a private matter between the customer and their bill.

Connection and supply[edit]

The undertaker's length comes into existence through the connection process. Section 45 places a duty on the undertaker to make a connection between a water main and a service pipe on application, subject to the conditions of that section,^[5] and section 146 deals with connection charges.^[6] Section 52 sets out the duty to supply water for domestic purposes to premises so connected.^[7]

Scotland[edit]

This division is that of England and Wales. In Scotland water and sewerage services are provided by Scottish Water under the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002,^[8] and the ownership boundary derives from Scottish legislation rather than from the Water Industry Act 1991.

Why this article carries no prices[edit]

The cost of finding and repairing a leak is not published by any independent body. Every figure available is on the website of a company selling the work, quoting itself, unaudited and not comparable with the next. A reference work that repeated one of those numbers would be presenting an advertisement as a fact.

What can be established is who is liable, how charging works and what makes a particular investigation harder or easier, and those are set out in the other articles in this family.