"Ken Hall" wrote in message
...

I've lived in this house for more than 20 years. After a rain there
might be an inch or so f standing water for a hour or two in my back
yard, but that was it.

So the property has had inadequate drainage for 20+ year.

. . . it appears that
a neighbor has filled in his back yard, raising the level about a
foot. It appears that the developer designed the drainage to go down
the easement of the back yards to the storm sewer at the end of the
block. Now the water from the "upstream" houses comes into my yard
and is dammed up by my neighbor causing it to pool.
Is there any law or rule forbidding him from changing the runoff
causing my yard to flood?

The common law answer is that nothing prevents
a land occupier from raising the surface level of his
land. Neighbours downhill simply have to put up
with whatever happens i.e. accept the runoff and
make their own arrangements. You need local
legal advice whether statute law may have changed
this where you live.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

On Mar 13, 4:51 pm, "Don Phillipson"
wrote:
"Ken Hall" wrote in message

...

I've lived in this house for more than 20 years. After a rain there
might be an inch or so f standing water for a hour or two in my back
yard, but that was it.

So the property has had inadequate drainage for 20+ year.

. . . it appears that
a neighbor has filled in his back yard, raising the level about a
foot. It appears that the developer designed the drainage to go down
the easement of the back yards to the storm sewer at the end of the
block. Now the water from the "upstream" houses comes into my yard
and is dammed up by my neighbor causing it to pool.
Is there any law or rule forbidding him from changing the runoff
causing my yard to flood?

The common law answer is that nothing prevents
a land occupier from raising the surface level of his
land. Neighbours downhill simply have to put up
with whatever happens i.e. accept the runoff and
make their own arrangements. You need local
legal advice whether statute law may have changed
this where you live.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Most places you can do what you want with respect to grading, within
reason, as long as you don't impact neigboring properties. If this
house was part of a sub-division of homes, it's typical for there to
be a grading plan that was required as part of the approval process
that covers how surface water is going to be dealt with. It may
include swales, retention basins, etc. It sounds like the planned
flow in this case was downhill and then to the storm sewer. In this
case, it sounds like the neighbor has made a drastic and significant
change in his grading which creates a real problem for your property,
with no easy solution. You can't get water to follow it's natural
flow when he's effectively built a downhill barrier.

I'd probably start by going over and talking to the neighbor. He may
be totally unaware of the problem he has created. And the sooner you
let him know, the better, as he may be in the process of continuing to
do more work, plant landscape trees, etc. If he's reasonable, he
should explain what he did and show it to you. If you can't reach
some reasonable agreement with him, next stop is town hall and see the
code enforcement officer, who can point you in the right direction.
If the neighbor has changed things from what the development plans
specified, the town should be on your side, which will be a big plus,
as it saves you the cost of trying to deal with this.

"Don Phillipson" writes:

"Ken Hall" wrote in message
.. .

I've lived in this house for more than 20 years. After a rain there
might be an inch or so f standing water for a hour or two in my back
yard, but that was it.

So the property has had inadequate drainage for 20+ year.

If it is clay soil, a "rain" that could be an inch or two, takes an
hour or two to drain? Not necessarily "bad" drainage - could be just
typical for the area? Looks like the email address is somewhere in
Houston. WHat's the soil and typical slope like?

We aren't all blessed with sandy soils and sloping land.

. . . it appears that
a neighbor has filled in his back yard, raising the level about a
foot. It appears that the developer designed the drainage to go down
the easement of the back yards to the storm sewer at the end of the
block. Now the water from the "upstream" houses comes into my yard
and is dammed up by my neighbor causing it to pool.
Is there any law or rule forbidding him from changing the runoff
causing my yard to flood?

The common law answer is that nothing prevents
a land occupier from raising the surface level of his
land. Neighbours downhill simply have to put up
with whatever happens i.e. accept the runoff and
make their own arrangements. You need local
legal advice whether statute law may have changed
this where you live.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Where I live (flatlands of the western plains), drainage patterns are
part of the lot plan, and you are not allowed to change the grade or build
anything that would cause an obstruction along an area 18" from the edge
of the lot line. Drainage flows along the lot lines to the sewer system.
If someone blocks it, and somone else complains to the city, the city can
order them to fix it.

So, the answer is - this is clearly a local thing, and the only place
to find out answers is somewhere in your town. Try City Hall.

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:51:26 -0500, someone wrote:

... Neighbours downhill simply have to put up
with whatever happens i.e. accept the runoff

But he's not a neighbor downhill, he's a neighbor uphill. It's not
runoff from the person who raised his lot, it's impounded water.

OP was okay with runoff from upstream, until the person DOWNstream
created a damned dam.

First go see neighbor, ask nicely about his grading, tell him what
happened, see if he is willing to assist. Neighbor might not even
know hois work has had this effect. If no satisfactory response, then
see lawyer. No "rule" that OP gets from an internet newsgroup is
going to "prove" anything to the neighbor, and since we don't know
where he is, how would we know what "law" to cite.


Reply to NG only - this e.mail address goes to a kill file.