Costly pipe repairs – who pays?

Hundreds of homeowners in Carterton are sitting on kilometres of sewer pipes that could bite them in the pocket when they break.
Carterton District Council chief executive Colin Wright said council policy is unclear as to who is responsible for the sewer laterals that run between a house and the street's main sewer pipe.
He said there had been few repairs needed on the system to date, but as the town ages there would be more maintenance required.
''Their life spans depend on the different materials and standards at the time they were installed, but the oldest are well over 70 years now,'' he said.
When repairs were needed they were normally about$1000 to $2000, he said, but had to be undertaken urgently, or could disrupt the roads they run underneath.
Until now CDC had arbitrarily undertaken the few repairs needed each year, but responsibility needed to be clarified for the future, he said
Each lateral is about 10m, and with about 2000 in the town Mr Wright estimated there was about 20,000m or 20km of sewer laterals in Carterton.
''Some of the sewer laterals are recorded in our list of assets and some aren't.
''It seems to be quite arbitrary as to what is, but it's only a small minority that are presently recorded as council assets,'' he said.
The current council policy on water supply pipes defined them as the landowner's responsibility up to the property boundary, where they became council assets, he said.
The ownership of the town's sewer laterals was discussed at a council meeting on February 24, with the majority of councillors in favour of defining the laterals as a council responsibility, and collecting maintenance costs through rates. But it was decided to first discuss the issue with Masterton and South Wairarapa district councillors at the next Shared Services Committee working party to compare policies. ''Typically when a structural problem happens it's normally a very expensive repair, and if we have to say to a property owner that they have to pay right away that's very difficult for a household,'' Mr Wright said.
''But if the council takes responsibility and includes it in our rates, then over time they pay for it, and it gets away from these problems at the time,'' he said.