neighbour altered drainpipe to our house. Is it allowed????

veryskint_3

Hi all. We recently had an extension built on our house to accomodate 2 extra kids. We had it all passed by the council and it is now finished. Our neighbour joined on opposed it all the way, but it has been passed as it does not affect anyones light. Our guttering used to run along the back of our house at into our neighbours drainpipe, so when the building work was done the builder put our guttering back onto the neighbours so it flowed down her drainpipe as before.Whilst i was out yesterday our neighbour got someone to higher her guttering so not in line with ours and put a stopper on her end of the guttering and a stopper on ours, so in effect we have a piece of guttering on our house now with a stopper on each end (if you get my drift) therefore is no use or ornament, therefore is she allowed to do this as there is nowhere our rainwater can flow as the original flow was down her drainpipe as we do not have one at the back of our house.Can someone please help!!!

adouglasmhor

Report her straight to the council's building control department. Also get someone out to put a downpipe in before the rain makes a damp patch down your wall. It will take years to dry out if you don't.

veryskint_3

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Report her straight to the council's building control department. Also get someone out to put a downpipe in before the rain makes a damp patch down your wall. It will take years to dry out if you don't.

i dont know wher we can put a drainpipe as we had a double story extension which is about 6 inch away from her boundray wall as she would not let anyone onto her property for scaffolding, pointing etc. Also there is a few centimetres gap between our stopper and her stopper, and as i say she will not let anyone on her side to do anything. We have told the councils building dept and they said they couldnt make her do anything!

littletreasure

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with your neighbour. I've been lucky with mine.

Could you not put a down pipe on the other end and catch the water into a water butt, you could then water the garden saving you money if you are on mtered water.

Luggworm

veryskint wrote: »

there is nowhere our rainwater can flow as the original flow was down her drainpipe as we do not have one at the back of our house.Can someone please help!!!

Can you not remove the stopper on your end and extend the guttering slightly so that the water runs onto her side?

Or if you're not feeling quite so belligerent have you got enough drop to raise your guttering so that it flows into her guttering without touching it?

veryskint_3

littletreasure wrote: »

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with your neighbour. I've been lucky with mine.

Could you not put a down pipe on the other end and catch the water into a water butt, you could then water the garden saving you money if you are on mtered water.

Hi thanks for your reply but i thought of a water butt but we have had all our back garden flagged.

veryskint_3

Luggworm wrote: »

Can you not remove the stopper on your end and extend the guttering slightly so that the water runs onto her side?

Or if you're not feeling quite so belligerent have you got enough drop to raise your guttering so that it flows into her guttering without touching it?

Hi thanks for your reply, as i said before there is no way we can get to the stopper as there is no room to get down the side of the house and no one can go onto her land. Also her guttering has been raised so it is above ours. Id like to climb up though and take the stopper off our end so it all flows into her garden. We have had the extension built as my husbands ex wife died and the kids have come to live with us and she knows this, so how mailicious is she being!!!!

debbie42

A water butt isn't a viable solution, long term. I had one in a similar situation, between a drainpipe and a soakaway, and when it rained, it could fill up very quickly.

Although I think your neighbour is being very petty, and I'd be hacked off in your circumstances, I don't see that you have a right to (effectively) empty your rainwater into your neighbour's drains. Could you sort out a soakaway as a solution?

square_bear

Hi,

I think that if you check the deeds it will say something about shared sewage and drainage pipes.

The houses sound like they were built to share the same outlet and so I think that you would not have a problem proving this.

SB

veryskint_3

debbie42 wrote: »

A water butt isn't a viable solution, long term. I had one in a similar situation, between a drainpipe and a soakaway, and when it rained, it could fill up very quickly.

Although I think your neighbour is being very petty, and I'd be hacked off in your circumstances, I don't see that you have a right to (effectively) empty your rainwater into your neighbour's drains. Could you sort out a soakaway as a solution?

The original building had the guttering going from our end of the house to hers and down her drainpipe. The house was originally a council house. The plans we had drawn up stated that the guttering had to follow on as they did before. The problem is the building inspectors came out at intervals and said the drainage was fine but now since she has altered it we wouldnt be able to get the house passed on final inspection. She is so vindictive that its impossible to speak to her and when we do she takes it out on the kids ( she is a woman of 60 who used to be a lollypop lady!!!!)

BobProperty

veryskint wrote: »

The original building had the guttering going from our end of the house to hers and down her drainpipe. The house was originally a council house. The plans we had drawn up stated that the guttering had to follow on as they did before. The problem is the building inspectors came out at intervals and said the drainage was fine but now since she has altered it we wouldnt be able to get the house passed on final inspection....

Let me get this correct. The original layout and the new layout were on the basis of rainwater draining onto her side of the property, so you must have the right to do this. Her actions are now 1. Preventing you completing this as per Building Control and 2. Potentially will cause damage to your property. I would be writing to her stating this and pointing out that you will hold her responsible for any damage to your property caused by her action (this might have an effect). What I would also do is contact Environmental Health as she has now caused a "nuisance" (maybe?) by stopping your rainwater flow. This will become a health and or environmental hazard which hopefully they will require to be put right. (Usually pretty quickly, we are talking days or a couple of weeks here)

The nasty techie part of me says I would put an outlet at the end of my gutter with an outflow shoe on my side of the boundary of the property but flowing onto her side. Fixed with an unusually large number of clips, held with security screws and painted in burglar paint.