The Water and Sewerage Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

Right of sewerage undertaker to undertake the making of communications with public sewers

164.—(1) Where a person gives to a sewerage undertaker notice under Article 163 of his proposal to have his drains or sewer made to communicate with a public sewer of that undertaker, the undertaker may—

(a) within 21 days after the receipt of the notice; or

(b) if any question arising under the notice requires to be determined by the Authority, within 21 days after the determination of that question,

give notice to that person that the undertaker intends itself to make the communication.

(2) If, after a notice has been given to any person under paragraph (1), that person proceeds himself to make the communication, he shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.

(3) Where a sewerage undertaker has given a notice under paragraph (1)—

(a) the undertaker shall have all such rights in respect of the making of the communication as the person desiring it to be made would have; but

(b) it shall not be obligatory on the undertaker to make the communication until either—

(i) there has been paid to the sewerage undertaker any such sum, not exceeding the undertaker’s reasonable estimate of the cost of the work, as the undertaker may have required to be paid to it; or

(ii) there has been given to the undertaker such security for the payment of the cost of the work as it may reasonably have required.

(4) If any payment made to a sewerage undertaker under paragraph (3) exceeds the expenses reasonably incurred by it in the carrying out of the work in question, the excess shall be repaid by the undertaker; and, if and so far as those expenses are not covered by such a payment, the undertaker may recover summarily as a civil debt the expenses, or the balance of them, from the person for whom the work was done.

(5) Any dispute between a sewerage undertaker and any other person as to—

(a) whether the undertaker’s estimate of the cost of works given under paragraph (3)(b)(i) is reasonable,

(b) whether any requirement of security for the payment of the cost of works was reasonably made by the undertaker, or

(c) whether any excess is repayable, or any expenses are recoverable, by the undertaker under paragraph (4), or the amount of any such excess or expenses,

may be referred to the Authority for determination under Article 61 by either party to the dispute.

(6) For the purposes of this Article, the making of the communication between a drain or private sewer and a public sewer includes all such work as involves the breaking open of a street.