How to Prevent Neighbor Grade Modifications that would flood my property?

[LongLostFriend]

We live in a small town in Northern California.
The City/County boundary runs down the center of our street; and our house is on the County side of the street.

Our house and all the houses on our block, on our side of the street, are below grade. Our front lawn floods to a depth of about 3 to four inches when it rains (and it rains a LOT here!). IF the water were to get any deeper it would flood our living room.

Our neighbors (dirt and gravel) driveway floods to a depth of about 6 to eight inches when it rains. The water usually submerges their front porch first step.

Our neighbor, who had rented the property for about 30 years just passed away. The owners of the property are listing it for sale.
We are afraid that whomever purchases the property will attempt to raise the grade of the driveway. (That would be the first thing I would do!)

IF the neighbor's driveway is filled with dirt / gravel the water will run off onto my property and flood my living room.

How can I prevent the any new owners from altering the grade without first installing some type of sump / drainage that won't flooding into my house?

Can I file any kind of pre-emptive injunction to prevent modifications?

[ By the way this county is notrious for non-permitted work. ]What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

 

[NC Aggie]

Well the first thing to determine is if the new owner(s) would be required to acquire any kind of permit for any land disturbance activity. If so, I would talk to your county or town engineering or permitting department about your concerns and find out what type of review is required for issuance of a permit. In some jurisdiction across the country, any land disturbance is prohibited from impacting or altering the existing drainage patterns. Also, many jurisdictions have departments or personnel (usually within the engineering or public works) that deal with "drainage concerns". So even before the potential new owners move in, you may want to contact them to investigate if they can do anything....especially if some of the runoff is coming from the roadway or public right of way.

If he/she wouldn't be required to obtain a permit, then you probably wouldn't be able to do anything pre-emptive to stop him/her. Your only recourse would probably be to file suit if you can prove his/her actions has caused damages to your personal property.

 

[FarmerJ]

Do your self a favor beside getting a boundry survey for your records to show you exactly where your lot lines are take photos of your property and the property next door so you have a record of how they are now , then later on if someone makes changes in a way that force MORE water to drain onto your property you will also have to take pics again as part of having proof as to how your impacted. Your also free to learn from your city/county zoning desk what your options would be to alter drainage on your own property to reduce the risk of flooding.