A blocked drain: yours, or the municipality's?

Two systems, one pipe

The pipe that leaves your kitchen runs to the property line and then joins the public sewer under the street. Those two halves have different owners. Yours ends at the boundary; from there it is the municipality's.

That is why the first question a Dutch plumber asks is not what is blocked but where. It decides who pays before anyone picks up a tool.

Waternet, which runs the water system in Amsterdam and Weesp, states the split plainly:

How to tell which side you are on, before you call anyone

You can usually narrow it down in a few minutes, and it is worth the few minutes.

1. Check whether more than one drain is affected. One slow sink is almost always yours. Toilet, shower and kitchen all backing up at once points to the main pipe.
2. Ask a neighbour, especially in a terraced street or an apartment block. If they have it too, it is the shared pipe or the public sewer — not your kitchen trap.
3. Look for the inspection chamber — the ontstoppingsstuk — usually a round or square cover in the front garden or the path near the boundary. If water stands in it, the blockage is downstream, on the municipality's side.
4. If it is downstream, call the municipality first. In Amsterdam and Weesp that is the gemeente; elsewhere in this area each municipality has its own number.

If you rent

There is a second line running across this one, and it catches people out. Dutch law puts clearing the pipework inside the home on the tenant — but only as far as it is reachable. Anything behind a wall, under a floor or beyond the reachable point is the landlord's, and beyond the property line it is the municipality's.

So a blocked kitchen sink is usually yours to sort. A main drain backing up into the shower is not.

What we do

We clear blockages on the private side — inside the home and up to the property line — and we tell you when the blockage is not on that side instead of billing you for it. If the inspection chamber shows the problem is downstream, the right call is to the municipality and it costs you nothing.

Send a photo of the inspection chamber if you can find it. It often answers the question before anyone drives out.

Questions

The municipality says it is mine. Now what?

Ask them where they located the blockage. If it is between your house and the property line, it is yours and we can clear it. If they have not looked yet, the inspection chamber usually settles it in minutes.

I live in an apartment. Is the stack mine?

Usually not alone. The vertical stack that serves several flats is shared, which in an owner-occupied block means it is the owners' association's responsibility rather than yours individually. A blockage that affects your neighbours is a strong sign you are dealing with the shared pipe.

Can I use a chemical drain cleaner first?

We would rather you did not. On a blockage that is not in the trap it rarely works, it makes the pipe unpleasant and sometimes unsafe to open, and on older pipework it can do damage. Hot water and a plunger first; if that does not do it, the problem is further down.

Talk to us about it

If water is coming in, call. For anything else a WhatsApp message works better — you can send a photo of the label, the error code or the wet patch, and you get an answer you can read back. English is fine.

Call +31640115625 WhatsApp All our English pages

Where exactly the boundary runs can differ per municipality and per property. This page explains the general rule in our service area.