Undisclosed easement/informal easement

Hey all,

This forms part of a previous post in the plumbing section re shared sewer pipe. Short story is we bought a house and later found out via the neighbor that their sewer pipe connects into ours and then out to the street (via our sewer pipe). There are no registered easements or encumbrances on the title and nothing disclosed by real estate agents, vendor or conveyancors.

Can anyone give their opinion on the legality of selling a property with an undisclosed or informal easement?

I was explaining the story to someone today who went through a similar situation but it was a commercial property. Due to it being a commercial property things got pretty nasty between the two parties. I certainly dont want things to get nasty as i like my neighbors. Anyway, they suggested finding out if the agents were aware of the "easement" at the time it was sold and if so, that they had a problem and we should seek some sort of compensation. We certainly would have thought twice if we knew about it.

They also mentioned that as we are now aware of it, we would need to disclose it if we sold and this could have a significant impact on the value of the property. Is this true? I wasn't quite sure if that sounded correct.

Just trying to work out if we have a legal avenue to follow before we think about engaging a lawyer...any opinions would be great!

Michael


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