illegal drainage

stevie2285

I moved into a house several months ago and i recently had a neighbouring farmer put a letter through my door telling me there are pipes laid in my garden that drain his farm and that I am responsible under repairian law for its maintenance. we are now experiencing flooding which i think is coming from these pipes. There are no records of where the pipes are and it appears that no permissions were asked for to lay the pipes. These pipes did not show up in conveyancing searches. The pipes appear to have been laid in contravention of the Land Drainage Act 1991. Had I known about these pipes I would not have purchased the house. Am I responsible for these pipes?

penners324

Very unlikely. As they drain his land I would think he's responsible.
If you're responsible you could remove the drainage pipes at the border of your property.

SmashedAvacado

penners324 wrote: »

Very unlikely. As they drain his land I would think he's responsible.
If you're responsible you could remove the drainage pipes at the border of your property.

Not necessarily.

OP - Are you sure there are no rights of drainage in favour of the neighbouring land identified on the legal title to your property?

Linton

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/owning-a-watercourse


Does this help? I dont see pipes being listed as a "watercourse".

davidmcn

Linton wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/owning-a-watercourse

Does this help? I dont see pipes being listed as a "watercourse".

A culverted stream is likely to be in a pipe.

SmashedAvacado

it is not particularly unusual to drain someone else's land over your land and you certainly cant just assume that you can remove the pipes. There will be an answer to this but it requires professional knowledge which some posters clearly dont have. The starting point is to look at your title documents - properly

bap98189

Riparian rights usually relate to rivers or streams. They are designed to stop one person damning a water supply that flows over their land to the detriment of people downstream. I would be surprised if you were responsible for upkeep of his field drains.

When were the drains laid? It is quite possible that they are very old.

stevie2285

thank you Linton and Smashed
Im pretty sure there was nothing in the legal title but i have my solicitor checking the conveyancing file. the point is, this water flow would not be coming across our land if the pipe had not been laid. The Environment Agency have no record, the NHBC have no record and the local council planning and drainage have no record. Original drainage plans do not show pipes and there's no record of any permissions being asked for to redirect a watercourse or change the drainage plan......but spookily the farmer took photographs of a JCB digging the trench. I believe this was done in between house inspection visits from the NHBC with agreement between the farmer and either the developer or an unscrupulous JCB driver.

princeofpounds

Hi Stevie. Unfortunately there isn't really enough to go on yet to determine the real legal situation here.

If the pipes have been there long enough a drainage easement may already have been established by prescription (google it). Drainage easements can be particularly complicated because sometimes it cannot be considered an open use of land, given that the drain may be hidden, so if you suspect that is the case then the easement may not be valid after all despite long-term use.

But then again, the farmland may be allowed to drain onto your property naturally given its relative position, and the prior existence of a stream may also be a relevant factor.

My guess is that it's very possible that the farmer and the JCB driver didn't 'do a deal', but that the developer realised the land was soggy just as you have, and chose to install the drainage themselves to solve the problem.

Environment agency, drain maps, NHBC, land draining act etc. may all be total red herrings. A lot of this stuff has been formalised over the years but that doesn't mean past drainage arrangements become illegal. In fact most drainage arrangements, I would hazard a guess, have never had anything to do with the EA, are not mapped etc.

Then the whole matter about whether your house vendor was aware and failed to disclose is a whole other issue.

A few things that might help:

How long have these pipes been there?

Is it draining groundwater, sewage, treated sewage?

Where is it actually coming from upstream? A ditch, another pipe, a stream or a spring?

Does it connect to a public sewer, a watercourse, or something else?

How long has it been there?

What circumstances do you know as uncontested facts, and what do you suspect?

RockOnZombies

If this has been done recently and there is pictorial evidence, there appear to be two issues, one is trespass. The other is land drainage law which can be very complicated, if the farmer has illegally diverted a watercourse that's a nightmare as the landowner is ultimately responsible for that and if he's done it on your land that could be bad as it opens you up to enforcement action.

But land drainage is different, under land drainage law you have to accept natural surface flows from higher land but not pipes unless there is some agreement in place that's clearly written down somewhere, you need that. If that doesn't exist, tough luck on the farmer as its back to trespass and you could dig the pipes up and block up the outfall on your boundary and there's nothing anybody could do to stop you. And just to be clear riparian responsibilities comes under common law as well as the land drainage act, but applies to watercourses specifically so you have no responsibility for this land drainage system from your description.

Linton

davidmcn wrote: »

A culverted stream is likely to be in a pipe.

Yes but it must have been a stream, not some pipes the farmer happened to put through the site at some time in the past.