neighbour removed guttering downpipe - flooding!

juniper-j

Hi all,

Last year my neighbour had new guttering and removed their downpipe (which led to a drain on their property). This caused water to overflow from our own guttering down the side of our house and into our garden.

We tried to remedy this by having a new downpipe put onto our guttering, but as we have no drain available we bought a large waterbutt - however this can't cope with more than a few days heavy rainfall! We now use it to just divert the water onto our garden grass (not ideal).

Is the neighbour allowed to remove her downpipe?
Do we have any rights to insist that it's reinstated?

The houses are the middle two in a row of four terraced, only one house (an end property) now has a downpipe with drain.

Would be greatly appreciative of any advice before I speak to the neighbour to try and tackle this problem! (they are already aware that our guttering has suffered because of this)

fingers crossed and thanks in advance.

DandelionPatrol

juniper-j wrote: »

Is the neighbour allowed to remove her downpipe?
Do we have any rights to insist that it's reinstated?

Take a look at your deeds. This will tell you whether there are any rights and duties associated with the guttering.

Davesnave

You title documents will tell you about any rights and responsibilities, but it isn't ideal for all the water to be sent to the other end of the terrace. There may not have been any extreme weather in the last few months, so more problems may yet arise, for others as well as yourselves.

If I owned the end house, now collecting everyone's water, I'd not be a happy bunny, so if I were you, I'd speak to them first to see if they are on-side for moral pressure on the neighbour, should it come to that.

From a purely practical point of view, much depends on where all the water is going. If it's into the sewer system, only the water company will suffer, but more recently-built properties have not been allowed to send it there. If it goes to soakaways, the single one may not cope.

juniper-j

Thanks both,
I've dug out my papers and I (think) they help.. Not sure of the legal jargon -

"Not to do or suffer to be done in or upon the land hereby transferred or any part thereof anything which may be or become a nusiance or annoyance or cause damage to the transferor or to the tenants or occupiers of the retained land"

Also-

"Any walls pipes chimney stacks gutters roofs and other things used in common By the property and any adjoining property included in the estate or existing in on or under one of such respective properties and used for the benefit of both of them shall be party structures and maintainable and repairable accordingly"

Am I right in thinking this covers it?

Davesnave

Yes you have them bang to rights legally, but you'll still need to persuade the neighbours to reinstate the downpipe to avoid a legal dispute, which wouldn't look good should you want to sell in the future, never mind the expense.

Bearing in mind that only someone particularly selfish or dense would have created the problem in the first place, I wish you luck!

My advice to contact the other neighbour still stands. I'd also contact your insurers, as they have an interest in the maintenance of the building and might assist.

juniper-j

Thanks so much for the help, feel a bit better about approaching the situation now. Absolutely hate the idea of falling out with a neighbour so it's good to know that I'm not asking for something that we're not entitled to. I'm hoping that after a chat they agree and get it sorted before I have to even mention the deeds (fingers crossed!!!)

chappers

Go to the land registry and check that their property has the same wording in their title, though I am sure it will if all the properties are contemporary to each other.

Land_Registry

chappers wrote: »

Go to the land registry and check that their property has the same wording in their title, though I am sure it will if all the properties are contemporary to each other.

Understanding how the 'estate' and 'retained land' are defined is important here and as posted if the properties were all part of the same development then the clauses are likely to be identical and the definitions explained generically.

I would hope that a general chat around the issue with the neighbour would resolve things and enable you to agree a way forward.

Legal action is expensive although a solicitor's letter can often resolve it as it shows intent. But much depends on each neighbour's view so if you can ease them to an agreement then that is invariably, as posted, the best option here.