Neighbor's water/ Our mess

[Jaydee36]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Virginia. Our neighbor, who we are friendly with, is directing the bottom splash receiver(or whatever it is called) and all the water coming off his roof and down his downspout onto our property which is about 15-20 feet away from the property line. Every time it rains and especially when it rains heavily we get a large puddle of water on our property directly below where their downspout is emptying. It is in our grass and in front of where our garbage pails are kept making it impossible to get to our garbage without rubber boots. The water gets ankle deep and the ground gets very mushy. Occasionally, during very hard prolonged rains, we get water in our lower basement level of our home which I think is caused by the raised water table on our/their property. What is their responsibility as far as directing the water from their property onto ours? We are friendly but have only been neighbors for about 2-3 years and have never really spoke to them very much.

 

[FarmerJ]

Have you checked with your city /county govt center to learn if there are local ords that address this problem ? like one that says one property cannot create conditions that force its water drainage to go to a neighboring property ? I had that problem in the past with a nieghbor whose lot sat lower than mine, but our city had addressed the matter and as long as I had not created changes that forced drainage to go on to her lot I was not obligated to do any thing extra. So in your case its possible that there may be a local ord that would require them to take steps to address this so its at least worth learning if there is local rules addressing it. (if its not somewhere in your states laws )

 

[NC Aggie]

Jaydee, the fact that your neighbor's downspout is directed toward your property likely has little impact on your issue because water flows downhill. Even if this downspout was directed in the opposite direction, the water would eventually flow downhill onto your property. It sounds like the real issue is how the properties are graded. Do you all live in a planned development in which all the lots were graded at the same time or were your lots graded separately? The reason I ask is because unless your neighbor's property was developed after yours, then the onus would be on you to provide adequate drainage on your own property. The only other scenario I can imagine in which your neighbor would be responsible for resolving a drainage issue on your property is if he/she has done something to alter the existing drainage of the properties.

 

[csi7]

I would check with the city first to find out about their rules.
What we did on our property just inside of the surveyed property line was to build a small natural berm all the way along the property to the drainage area provided by the original developers.

 

[TigerD]

Since you are friendly, tell them that you have started getting water in the basement and ask if they can direct it somewhere else. Perhaps offer to pay for an extension or a hose to the nearest storm drain.

If you can talk to them, it will be far friendlier than beating them up with a city inspector.

DC

 

[NC Aggie]

Since you are friendly, tell them that you have started getting water in the basement and ask if they can direct it somewhere else. Perhaps offer to pay for an extension or a hose to the nearest storm drain.

If you can talk to them, it will be far friendlier than beating them up with a city inspector.

DC

I agree, I think the best approach would be to try to resolve this issue amongst yourselves.

However, I think the O.P. should first determine if there is something that he/she can do on his/her property. Based on my experience investigating and resolving citizens' drainage issues for a municipality worked for, more often times than not when residents reported a drainage issue in which they accused their neighbor of causing standing or ponding water on their property, the root problem generally originated on the complainer's property.

The reason I suspect that their may be an issue on the O.P.'s property is because anytime there is standing or ponding water, it's usually an indicator that there is a grading problem on the property or a landscaping issue that is trapping the water in a particular area. Properties should be graded as such to drain runoff away or around the dwelling structures, driveways, walkways and patios. Even properties that are considered flat, it should be graded with enough fall to prevent water from ponding. Now naturally during certain times of year, your yard may stay saturated if you have high water tables, but based on the issue the O.P. described as sounds like more than that. Even if the runoff from your neighbor's roof can be diverted away from this area with the standing water, there is still a certain amount of rainfall that falls directly onto this area so if it's not draining properly, then you're still going to have puddles of water during heavier rainfalls.

 

[drewguy]

Putting aside a municipal ordinance, Virginia follows the modified "common enemy" rule, which basically means people have the right to do what they want with water so long as it is not unreasonable. Having a gutter drain 15-20 feet from your property doesn't seem unreasonable or as if they are trying to flood your property.

As suggested above see what you can do to get them to accomodate you, and also try to fix the problem on your end.