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The original was posted on /r/perth by /u/MechanoCookie on 2024-10-05 08:47:12+00:00.

A small win. We had a continual blockage outside of my property, but before the mains. Apparently the property owner (us) were still responsible for the pipe even though, it’s outside of our property.

Talking to plumbers (multiple), they all agreed that getting watercorp to pay for anything was like pulling teeth; and that watercorp continually use every trick in the book to get out of responsibilities and will try and tell you stuff verbally but won’t necessarily put stuff in writing. Watercorp would say that the property owner needs to call a plumber, when the plumber determines it’s their issue, then the plumber calls watercorp and gets a PO to unblock. The three plumbers I had had said this never happens.

Now, this issue was because of tree roots in the neighbour’s yard. Three plumbers confirmed that the blockage was outside of our property, and two said it was part of the mainlines.

It was when the third issues occurred, I brought it up with watercorp in writing. They called and pointed me to a plumbers handbook specifying that the pipe between my property, and their mains was my issue. I asked them to put everything in writing. I then googled and found on the watercorp website, and the department of health’s websites, contradicting information, saying that the owner is only responsible for parts within their property boundary. I gave the links to watercorp, and they agreed to fix the issue at no cost to me. Hazar.

TLDR: pipes outside your boundary are a grey area as to responsibility. Ague your point - dept health and their own website. Watercorp ended up fixing for free.