Get a chair, this could be a long one I own a pub. We are next door to a beauty salon and the owner lives above. We have been having problems with our drains for some time now to the point yesterday, we had a CCTV scan and they thought the drains were collapsed £300 So today, we have had someone out to find the collapse. They have dug 4 holes in the pub (The pub closed for the day due to H&S and the smell). They started at about noon and I have just been told, that the drains hadnt collapsed but they were blocked ram solid with baby wipes. And I mean approx 2ft of them The engineer has put his camera up towards my neighbours pipes and said yeh, they are coming from there. Theres loads sat up there too. The problem is, relations are stained, as she has complained about 15 times about the noise from the pub. Yeh, the pub thats been there sine 1877 but she moved in. Our license allows music until 12:30 but we, as a gesture, stop at 12. But she still complains The engineer says she needs to get hers done but not just to clear hers, but to completely clear our side as well as she will be literally, rolling the Sh!t downhill 1. Do I have a claim against her for all the work. We are looking at about £2-2.5k for all of this 2. Can I force her, legally to clear the drains past our property 3. If not, can I have it registered via a solicitor letter, that we are aware of this issue and any further incident we will be coming to her. Thanks

Hi, I was driving my Mini Cooper (2011) on my new housing development. I drove over a speed bump which was quite high, and as the car came down from the speed bump, the bottom of the car (sump tank) caught a raised drain directly after the speed bump. This resulted in the entire engine oil being leaked across the road. I didn't realise until around quarter mile down the road the oil light came on. I didn't drive the car any further and had to have it towed to a garage. The garage have said that it doesn't look to have damaged the engine, and it will cost £800 to fix everything due to no after market parts being available. However, I was hoping to get some advice on how to proceed. The roads aren't the responsibility of the Council yet, and are technically meant to be maintained by a site management company. They have refused to admit it's their fault. I'm not sure whether to: 1) Go through our insurance and call on their services to repair the vehicle and attempt to reclaim the costs from the site management. 2) Pay the repair costs ourselves and file a small claims court case to try and build a case to recuperate the costs. There were no signs on the road to say raised drains would be higher than the rest of the surface. The speed limit is 20mph which wouldn't have been exceeded due to only just turning out of our street and having to brake to go over the high speed bump. Thanks in advance for any suggestions on the best way to deal with this. I have attached a picture of the drain and road after the incident. As you can see the oil has poured out after coming in contact with the drain. The speed bump is located where the picture was taken from.

I have an issue with a drain that floods the area outside the front door of a property I rent. The drain is in a private road, owned by a local church. Every time there is a heavy storm, the drain overflows and creates a large puddle up to 4" deep outside my front door. As cars come down the road to attend the church, water is pushed over the door stop and floods into the basement. I spoke to Thames Water last year and they informed me that the ownership and responsibility laid with the church. I contacted the church but no action was taken so Thames Water agreed to send someone to try to deal with it. The upshot is that the drain is not blocked but is badly constructed, so is unable to cope with large volumes of water. Both myself and the Landlord have repeatedly contacted the church but nothing is being done to fix the problem. Is there any legal action that can be taken to force them to address the problem?

Hi, there is a drain on the road about 2 meters from the end of our driveway, it is slightly above the level of the road and so when it rains the water builds up around the drain and floods our drive, this has caused it to sink where the car is parked on it. Only the wheels on the side that is flooded has sunken, not the others. Our waste water is supplied by southern water and I have contacted them several times over the years but no response or resolution of the problem. What can i do? Thank you for your help in advance. Kind regards, Andre.

I was checking my account just a while ago and what i seen? h tt p://i46.tinypic.com/1ify13.png (i cant post correct link because i havent 10posts) I have new card from one week and didnt give details anywhere, how it is possible? What I should do?!!!! Go to bank just when wake up? I am shocked. Could anyne check this company?

Hi The external drain which deals with waste from the kitchen is totally blocked and flooding our front garden. My husband attempted to clear it by putting rods down but cannot open to cover as a key is needed. The Landlord doesn't have anything to open it and informed us that as he's away on business we'll have to sort this ourselves! I'm far from happy about this as I don't believe it to be our responsibility as it's an external drain plus we cannot afford to get anyone out to clear it for us. It is really badly blocked, any water going down the sink or from the washing machine is flooding straight onto the path and quite frankly I'm sick of my kids having to wade through it everyday dragging all sorts of mess into the house with them. We live in a detached house and the drain isn't shared with anyone else. Any advice appreciated Lisa

We've got a double sink in the kitchen and every time I use our washing machine, the plughole on the side nearest the machine regurgitates the most appalling smell imaginable. It smells like rotten eggs, and unfortunately it's been like this since we moved into this house. I've tried everything I can think of...disinfectant, bicarb, every propriety drain cleaner on the market (everything from Poundland to the really expensive varieties), and although it might get rid of (or mask) the smell for a day or two at most it always comes back. Right at this moment, it's so bad I can't go into the kitchen because it's making me heave. We contacted our letting agent about this when we first moved in, and they sent their handy man round but he couldn't see where the problem was and just suggested we use drain cleaner. We know it's not the washing machine itself - my OH has taken the pipe off it and checked it (no smell), but we cleaned the whole thing including the filter regardless - it made no difference at all. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what may be causing this, or what on earth we can do to get rid of it? My niece dropped round the other evening just as it started and I was mortified because the smell was so bad!

Brief background - Having got in a mess with some payday loans I opened a parachute account as I saw advised in these forums, a Basic Bank Account with Natwest in August 2012. On payday 28th September i paid £600 into this account to pay some bills/rent/living expenses for the month. Noticed on the 28th Sept through my internet banking that 12 transactions for varying amounts totalling £598.00 had been debited from my account. I immediately contacted Natwest and was told that they were made by Capital Finance One. I said that i had not made or authorised these transactions with CFO and that i had not provided my card details to them, nor had i had any relationship with them relating to my Natwest Account either payment into my account or prior debits. Natwest agreed to raise this as fraudulent transactions but they could not do that until they debited the account as opposed to pending, and that it may have to go for a 5 day assessment before they would decide whether to refund. A further telephone conversation on 2nd October when the transactions debited confirmed that they were going for a 5 working day investigation/assessment before refund. I contacted Fraud aftercare again on 8th October and was told that a letter was being sent to me (which i have still not received) and that extra investigation was being carried out with no timescale mentioned. On 8th October i also contacted CFO and asked for a statement of account as i was disputing amounts they had taken. They promised me a statement of account and charges by email, they have still failed to provide this. My original loan agreement was for £300. They state on the phone but have yet to prove that i still owe them £117 on top of the £598 they already took fraudulently. Also saying they would reloan me £560 if i repaid this now, talk about cynical! On 10th October i received a call from a Fraud investigator who informed me they contacted CFO and as i have an account with CFO they can't raise this as Fraud despite me not giving CFO my card details or authorising the transactions. The lady referred me on to Retail disputes and said i should be able to raise a Visa chargeback with them. After a long discussion with Retail disputes i was told that they had a new directive from Visa that no chargebacks could be carried out with Finance companies. I reiterated i had not provided my card details to CFO and had not authorised the transactions and i wished to speak to someone more senior. She went away and came back saying that all managers were in a meeting but i could have a call back within 24 hours. I came away and read these forums and saw the previous exact same cases, some that had been resolved positively and some not. I called back later that day and armed with further information i repeated the scenario to a 2nd individual at Retail Fraud quoting FSA guidelines on unauthorised transactions. The guy was very obnoxious even telling me he had worked for FSA and i didn't know what i was talking about and they had every right not to refund whilst they investigated the circumstances. He put me on hold whilst he contacted CFO. He came back to me and said that as i had an account with CFO and still owed them money there was no way that they would raise a Visa chargeback. I repeated that this account was not even open when my agreement with CFO was signed and there was no way that i had provided them with my card details and they had obtained and used them fraudulently. He became very arrogant which ended with me telling him Natwest were now complicit in this Fraud being carried out and i wished to raise a formal complaint. he told me the complaints department was now closed for the day and they would have to call me back tomorrow. Today 11th October i received a callback from a supervisor at Retail Disputes who went throught he same scenario telling me there was nothing they could do for me. They said it was part of CFO T+Cs that they can glean your card details from a 3rd party and use them if they feel you have an outstanding balance with them. Having just checked the Contract when i took out the loan this is not actually the case at all. *You authorise us to collect any monies owed under the Agreement from any debit card account of which you have supplied details to us. We may make these attempts as frequently and at any time we choose while there is an overdue balance on your loan account, up until the time where the total amount collected equals the total amount owed. Clearly there is no mention of 3rd parties and i have not supplied my Natwest debit card details to CFO. I asked to be forwarded to the Complaints handling team which eventually happened. Having gone through the scenario again i was still told nothing they could do. I advised that i wished to raise a formal complaint, that i would follow this up with a letter copying the CEO and if i did not receive a satisfactory conclusion i would raise a case with Financial Ombudsman Service. He made a note of my complaint and said this would be logged against my account but i would not receive a case number until i followed up with a formal letter. He was unable to inform me if there were any Continuous Debit Authority setup on my account. My questions are now what do i do next? What information do i need to put in the official complaint letter? Do i have any hope with FOS if i have to go down that line? I am aware that i should be able to have an account for my subsistence amounts, i have now been left with no money whatsoever to buy food or petrol for the rest of the month to even be able to get to work. I will of course open a new account for next months wages but i am now left in an impossible scenario to survive the rest of the month.

Hi all, haven`t the foggiest where to ask this but our water is high in the outside drain and loo going down slowly. Problem happened before but I can`t remember which way the flow went and who was the end of line before the waste went into main sewer in the road? I suspect my neighbour is last in line so the blockage must be from her to main sewer so is she responsible? last time, I am informed, due to my bad memory, that the problem was in the main sewer way down the road?