Water Act 1945

37 Duty of undertakers to provide domestic supply for new buildings.

(1) Where an owner of land proposes to erect thereon buildings for which a supply of water for domestic purposes will be needed, he may require any statutory water undertakers within whose limits of supply that land is situated to lay any necessary mains and bring water thereto, and thereupon the undertakers shall, subject as hereinafter provided, comply with that requisition:

Provided that the undertakers before complying with a requisition under this subsection—

(a) may require the owner to undertake to pay in respect of each year a sum amounting to one-eighth of the expense of providing and laying the necessary mains (less any amounts received by the undertakers in respect of water supplied, whether for domestic Or non-domestic purposes, in that year from those mains) until the aggregate amount of water rates payable annually in respect of the buildings when erected and in respect of any other premises connected with the said mains at the rates for the time being charged by the undertakers equals or exceeds such sum as aforesaid Or until the expiration of a period of twelve years, whichever first occurs; and

(b) except where the owner is a local or public authority, may also require him to deposit with the undertakers as security for payment of the said annual sums, such sum, not exceeding the total expense of laying and providing the mains, as the undertakers may require.

(2) The undertakers shall pay interest at the prescribed rate or, if no rate is prescribed, at four per cent. per annum on any sum in their hands by virtue of a requirement under paragraph (b) of the proviso to the last foregoing subsection, and shall, on the request of the owner of the land, appropriate out of that sum any amount due under the undertaking referred to in paragraph (a) of the said proviso and shall, when the said undertaking is finally discharged, repay to the owner any sum remaining in their hands as aforesaid.

(3) If the undertakers, after receipt of a requisition under subsection (1) of this section and after tender to them of any undertaking or deposit which they may require in accordance with that subsection, do not before the expiration of three months lay the necessary mains, and bring water to the land in question in accordance with the requisition, they shall, unless they show that the failure was due to unavoidable accident or other unavoidable cause, be guilty of an offence against this Act.