A great many houses in rural Kilkenny are served by a septic tank or wastewater treatment system rather than mains drainage. That is entirely ordinary. What causes difficulty is that the arrangements are frequently informal and unrecorded.
What a Buyer Needs to Establish
Where the system is, physically, and whether it lies entirely within the property being sold. This sounds obvious and is regularly not the case. Where the percolation area is — the ground into which treated effluent discharges — because a percolation area partly on a neighbour’s land requires a documented right rather than an understanding, and a buyer’s lender will want to see it. Whether it is shared with an adjoining house, which is common where a site was carved out of a family holding, and which needs an agreement covering maintenance, repair and costs. Registration, since there is a registration regime for domestic wastewater treatment systems and the position should be confirmed. And whether it works, which is a matter for an engineer rather than a solicitor. Have the system inspected as part of your survey — the cost is small relative to replacing a failed system, and a replacement may itself require percolation testing and planning.
The Same Questions Apply to the Well
Where water comes from a private well rather than a public supply, establish where it is, whether it is within the property, whether the supply is shared with a neighbour, and whether there is any documented right where a pipe or the well itself crosses other land. Shared wells are common in rural Kilkenny and are frequently the subject of nothing more than sixty years of goodwill between two families — which works until one of the houses is sold to a stranger. The pattern is the same as with access and rights of way: an arrangement everybody has relied on for decades, that nobody ever wrote down, and that a lender will not accept on the basis that nobody has ever objected. For sellers, the lesson is to gather whatever exists before going to market — the original planning file, any percolation test, any engineer’s certificate, any written agreement with a neighbour. Producing that in week one keeps a rural sale on a normal timetable. Starting to look for it in week six is what turns a six-week sale into a four-month one.
Have an engineer look at it. A solicitor investigates the legal position of the system; only an engineer will tell you whether it is functioning, adequately sized for the house, and likely to need replacement.
Buying or selling rural property? 01 5827148.
Richard O’Shea — Solicitor & TEP
Solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors, established 1981, with an office at 2 Rose Inn Street in Kilkenny city centre and a second office in Dublin. The firm handles residential and rural conveyancing across Kilkenny and the south-east — buying, selling, sites and farmland, family transfers, remortgages and transfers of equity. Richard is a TEP of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, which matters more in conveyancing than people expect: a great many property transactions in Kilkenny arise out of an estate, a family transfer or a succession plan, and those need both sides handled together. Nothing here is tax advice — stamp duty and any gift or inheritance tax questions belong with your accountant and Revenue. 01 5827148 · richardoshea@marymolloysolicitors.com · LinkedIn
General information, not legal advice. This website contains general information about conveyancing and property law in Ireland. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor—client relationship. Every transaction turns on its own facts — the title, the planning position, the lender’s requirements and the contract — and advice on yours requires a consultation.
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