TL;DR
Drainage within your property boundary that serves only your property is your responsibility. Once it connects to the public sewer, or if it's a shared drain serving more than one property, it generally became Severn Trent Water's responsibility under the 2011 private sewer transfer regulations. If you're not sure which applies to your Coventry property, a CCTV drain survey settles it definitively.
Why this question comes up so often
It's one of the most common questions we're asked on a callout: "is this actually my problem, or should I be calling Severn Trent?" The confusion is understandable. Before October 2011, homeowners across England and Wales were often responsible for long, complicated stretches of shared drainage, sometimes running under neighbouring gardens or roads, with no clear record of exactly where the pipe went. The private sewer transfer changed that significantly.
The 2011 private sewer transfer, in plain English
On 1 October 2011, ownership of most private sewers and lateral drains that were connected to the public network before that date transferred automatically to the local water and sewerage company — Severn Trent Water across Coventry and Warwickshire. This mainly affected:
- Shared drains serving two or more properties
- Lateral drains — the section of pipe running from your property boundary out to the public sewer connection
What's still your responsibility
The drainage inside your property boundary that serves only your property — from your toilets, sinks, and gutters through to the point where it meets a shared drain or the public sewer — generally remains yours to maintain and repair. This includes internal soil pipes, the drain running under your garden if it serves only your house, and any gullies or manholes entirely within your boundary that don't connect to a neighbour's system.
How to actually find out where the boundary sits
Property deeds and Severn Trent's public sewer records show the general layout, but they don't always match what's actually in the ground, particularly on older streets where informal connections and modifications have happened over the decades. The only reliable way to know for certain is a CCTV drain survey, which maps the exact route of your drainage and shows precisely where it connects to a shared or public system. This is especially valuable if you're dealing with a recurring problem and want to know who to escalate it to.
If you're buying a property
If you're in the process of buying a home in Coventry, Nuneaton, or Leamington Spa, a pre-purchase drain survey will tell you exactly what you'd be taking on before you exchange contracts — including which sections of drainage are yours to maintain and which are Severn Trent's.
What to do if you're still unsure
If a blocked drain, drain repair need, or emergency drainage situation crops up and you genuinely don't know whether it's your responsibility, don't guess — request a fast fixed-price quote online and we'll assess the drainage on site, tell you honestly where the boundary sits, and only quote for the section that's actually yours to fix. We also offer drain unblocking, drain jetting, and soakaway repairs across Coventry and the surrounding Warwickshire towns.