wasserleitung über Nachbargrundstück

[sunsrmbs]

Hi,

My appologies for writing in English as my German writing is not good enough.

We moved into our newly built family house in Sept 2010.  Our neighbor moved into their new house at the same time.  We used the same architect.

In the following winter of 2011 we lost fresh water supply twice, due to cold temperature.  We then discovered that our water connection pipe runs via our neighbour's Felsen Keller, which is not insulated and hence when weather got cold it was frozen.

We were never informed by our architect about the situation util we lost our water supply during that winter in 2011.  After discussing with the architect, he insists that it was the cheaper solution to run the water connection via neighbour's keller. 

SInce then every winter when weather gets cold we have to keep the water tap in our washing room open in order to avoid the water pipe to get frozen again. 

Both my neighbor and I agree that we can not live with this situation forever, especially if any of us are away from our houses on holiday in winter, or if we want to sell our properties. 

To re-lay the water connection now we need to dig up the street or our neighbor's nice garden, which will cost a lot.

If the whole thing was planned properly from the beginning when both ours and our neighbor's lands are vacant, the water connection could be laid under the ground from our neighbor's vacant land to us.  The cost of doing so would have been much cheaper than digging up street or garden now.

Can anyone advice if our architect is responsible for the current situation, and hence should be paying for the cost of re-doing the water connection ?

Thank you for helping out.

Best,

Lin

 

[Urs Tischhauser]

Dear Lin

Your architect is a funny guy. /emoticons/default_additional/134.gif Cheaper is nice and well, but it has to work always properly, when he plan and build something.  /emoticons/default_additional/125.gif  Naturally he is responsable for this. And the entrepreneur who makes this pipe, too. He is also one. /emoticons/default_additional/134.gif It couldn't be, that you have to let open the water tap in winter. It is unbelievable.

Normally you have to dig 80-90cm deep into ground for the pipe from the street until your cellar. Then it works always, also during winter. Everybody knows this.

This guys have do remake the pipe correct on their costs. You have to say, that otherwise your lawyer would explain this to them. But surely not without costs!

Good luck /emoticons/default_additional/114.gif

Urs Tischhauser

 

[Fred]

Urs hat recht. Also alle Richtlinien und Vorschriften, auch Wasserleglemente der Gemeinden sehen vor, Ver- und Entsorgungsleitungen in frostsichere Tiefe zu legen. Es sei denn Wasserleitungen werden im Winter abgestellt und entleert, z.B. Leitungen in den Garten. Es könnte ja sein, dass die Temperaturen im Winter unter 0°C fallen.

Also alle wissen es. Der Architekt, der Bauleiter, der Ersteller der Leitung. Somit haben alle zusammen ein Problem, das sie gemeinsam lösen müssen.

Gruss, Fred

 

[sunsrmbs]

Urs/Fred,

Thank you for your reply.

Let me clarify a little bit more here.  As you have correctly pointed out, usually the water runs under the street to each individual plot of land.  Unfortunately for us, the water connection stopped at our neibour's border, and for us to have access, we had to lay the connection pipe ourselves, this is how our architect explains now to us.

Architect's argument is that if he did the connection under the street, it would be the same cost as doing it now, and it is a cost I have to pay anyway.  But I thought that we can lay the connection pipe on the bau land, because at the begining of the project the land is empty and we know where the houses will be so we can easily find a path for our water connection pipe and avoid the foundation of our neighbor's house.  With the heavy machine already on the land to do the initial digging for the foundation, it should not cost too mcuh more to dig a small trench for water pipe, surely cheaper than digging up the street I would have thought.

I think that our architect didn't realise that we didn't have water connection at our land, when he found out it was already too late, so he took the easier way of connecting via our neighbor's keller, without telling me at all.

Thanks again for your insight.

Lin

.

 

[habaUgeot]

Hi Lin

As you stated, you're living near Kloten.

In Switzerland, a plot of land has to be "erschlossen" (Tell me the correct term, if you get to know) to get the approval for construction. This means - among other points - that there has to be a solution, how to get the water (and sewer, phone, electricity, ...) to the planned house. Just putting some pipe to the neighbours cellar isn't a propper "Erschliessung" at all.

After all - to have a house constructed, the owner has to pay what is needed for his house. But depending on the contract and its content, the correct "Erschliessung" should be included. Maybe you should have that checked by a lawyer knowing "werkvertragsrecht" (the law of construction-contracts). From my point of view (that in this part is very distant) it smells a bit like milking foreign people not familiar with the lokal law.

And to top it: There should be some sort of contract with your neighbour, that you (or more precisely your allotement) has the right of piping the water through his allotment and house, and what will happen, when your neighbour will break down his house and needs to cut the pipe. This contract MUST be entered in the "Grundbuch" (cadastral register?)!! And your architect was (or still is) in charge to get that organised, because everything else is no "Erschliessung", so there wouldn't have been the approval for construction; it's a base for!

To be precise, like Fred said. It's not only the architects problem. Everyone in charge at that construction site has to know that. Everyone! it's their problem, so it's up to them to bring in a solution. And it's not up to you to bring the money.

Hope that helps

Haba

 

[sunsrmbs]

Hi Haba,

Thank you for your detailed reply which makes a lot of sense.  If as per your description, the land needs to be 'erschlossen', where should this be described, in the land purchase contract, or is it in the build contract between us the architect ? I guess if water connection is not properly described in the build contract, the local Germeinde should not have granted the build permit ?

Another fact is that I did went to our local Bau committe in our village and ask about this issue, the answer I got was that the architect did the correct implementation /emoticons/default_sad.png.

The groundbuch entry is not yet done, but as you correctly pointed out, this also needs to be sorted out quickly.  I suspect in the end the architect will ask us to bear the cost for this as well.

As you may have noticed, this matter has been dragged on since 2011 and there has been no solutions.  The architect didn't want to hear anything of it, the firm who did the water connection is repsonsible for all water related subjects in our Germeinde so I would have thought they should know better, but in this case they claimed that they acted upon achitect's instruction.

I have withhold the final payment to the architect (18k) because of this unresolved issue.  The archtect refuses to do anything about this so I will have to sort this out myself somehow.  I plan to obtain offers on re-lay the water connection, if the cost is over 18k (which I am certain it will) then I will still need to claim this from the architect, which I know will be next to impossible.

Court seems to be the only place to settle this but I hate to do that /emoticons/default_sad.png.

On your comment re milking foreigner, I might not want to go that far but it is certainly not easy to build a house in Switzerland.  Our build permit took more than two years, mainly due to objections from our existing neighbors on trivial things such as angle, color of our roof top etc. 

BTW I did live in Kloten, I now live in Kanton Luzern.

Thanks agin and best

Lin

 

[habaUgeot]

Lin,

Maybe the municipality accepted the piping of fresh water through your neigbours land as an "Erschliessung". But nevertheless, the piping has to be "state of technical knowledge" as well it should match the code of construction (but here, don't ask me in detail, I'm not doing watersupplies) - including sufficient thermal isolation (by burrying it at least 80cm deep for example) and including some sort of reasonable, sustainable contract with your neigbour.

Most problem of getting the money for a right construction from your architekt will be the time passed. Normally you have to point out any defficiency in quite a short period of time. Maybe this can cause problems. But for that thing, ask a lawyer (called Anwalt or Fürsprech in Switzerland).

A long time to get things settled with the objections from neighbours is not uncommon here - but two years seams a lot to me.

Hope things get quiter afterwards with you

yours

Haba

 

[sunsrmbs]

Hi Haba,

Will discuss with our local council again regarding the water issue.  Obviously it has been a while since the issue was raised initially but unfortunately my repeated requests were falling on deaf ears, and I am reluctant to engage lawers.

Anyway I am more confident now that the opinions received so far all seem to have vindicated my belief that the fault is at our architect, I will aproach him again for solutions.

Thanks & best

Lin