Do sewer man hole covers have to be disclosed on a survey?

[Steve S.]

I recently purchased a plot of land and built a house on it.  This was the last piece of land in a neighborhood and had sat for a while. 

Apparently partnof the reason is there is a manhole cover for the sewer mainline in the easement. The seller had it covered up by a ton of trees and brush so there was no way to see it. 

As a result of this discovery, I’ve had to spend about another $15,000 building a retaining wall and have about 20 less feet of property to work with as a result. 

I have 3 main issues I’d like some BP experts’ thoughts on:

1) Seller never disclosed this sewer main or the manhole cover. It wasn’t noted on the Sellers Dosclosure. I may not have purchased this land and built this house if I had known

2) the survey doesn’t have it listed. I had to pay for a survey. Does the survey company have an obligation to document this?

3) the hole builder told me they had to build a retaining wall splitting my back yard in half. This was not something I wanted. They have me the option to level the back yard and bring UP the sewer main or build a retaining wall about 2 feet from the manhole cover for the sewer. I preferred the retaining wall. They then trenched out about half the back yard and started lying forms for the wall more than 20 feet from the sewer main. I emailed and called them saying they said it would be 2 feet from the main and this impacts my ability to put in a pool. 24 hours went by without a response and in record time they built out the retaining wall 20 feet from where they said they would. They clearly did this on purpose to get it “done” so I’d have no recourse. 

The person that sold the land readily paid a few $1,000 to help offset the cost but nowhere near what it cost. This was very odd which makes me think they did it not just to be nice but because they are hiding something or trying not to get sued   

I’m trying to understand what recourse I may have before I get a lawyer involved. I have a hidden major issue in the land, a bad survey I think and a builder that built and entire wall in the middle of my yard without my authorization and wants $15,000

Thank you for any thoughts!

Ugh!!!!