Neighbour threatening legal action - please help!

Davesnave

Leaves might cause problems, but if  yours is clear and the right side neighbour's gutter is full of them, the drainage will still be impeded, so it's a matter of you two working together. See what they say first.

CatLady87

Thank you. I’ve arranged to have the gutter cleaned out, figured it can’t hurt at this point!

lesalanos

As stated at the start a pic would help massively

If your gutter is not connected to the problem neighbours then whatever you do to yours shouldn't have any effect on his guttering.  Have you seen the water overflowing from your gutter onto his house or could he be trying it on?

You need to check yours and the connected neighbours for leaves/blockages first of all 

Homer_home

lesalanos said:

As stated at the start a pic would help massively

If your gutter is not connected to the problem neighbours then whatever you do to yours shouldn't have any effect on his guttering.  Have you seen the water overflowing from your gutter onto his house or could he be trying it on?

You need to check yours and the connected neighbours for leaves/blockages first of all 

You're thinking like me.

@op ideally you need to take a look at what's happening to the rain and your gutters when it's raining , so you get a clearer picture 

CatLady87

Sorry, I appreciate a picture would be good but the roofer hasn’t sent it yet, though I have chased him.

I’m going to check With my other neighbour today. I’ve booked a gutter clean for Wednesday. It’s hard to know if the neighbour to the left is trying it on, though I don’t doubt he’s seeking a solution that only remedies his issue and not mine. 

I trusted the roofers that have been up there to let me know about the issues, maybe that was silly. From what I can see, the water is running down the wall on his property but from the ground it’s hard to see from where. It’d be useful to have someone on a ladder when it rains to see exactly where the water is coming from - tempted to ask my neighbour to the right if I can borrow his ladders and look but not sure how safe that is!

Mistral001

I am not sure if you have answered this before, but I will ask it anyway.  Do you have any downpipes coming from this gutter inside your property?

lesalanos

CatLady87 said:

Sorry, I appreciate a picture would be good but the roofer hasn’t sent it yet, though I have chased him.

I’m going to check With my other neighbour today. I’ve booked a gutter clean for Wednesday. It’s hard to know if the neighbour to the left is trying it on, though I don’t doubt he’s seeking a solution that only remedies his issue and not mine. 

I trusted the roofers that have been up there to let me know about the issues, maybe that was silly. From what I can see, the water is running down the wall on his property but from the ground it’s hard to see from where. It’d be useful to have someone on a ladder when it rains to see exactly where the water is coming from - tempted to ask my neighbour to the right if I can borrow his ladders and look but not sure how safe that is!

Just a pic from the front would help to start

I fail to see how rain from your gutter is affecting his wall

CatLady87

I’ll take a picture tonight. In answer to the question, no there are no downpipes on my property from this gutter, or any for that matter.

Mistral001

CatLady87 said:

I’ll take a picture tonight. In answer to the question, no there are no downpipes on my property from this gutter, or any for that matter.

Then the water from your roof has to flow into your neighbour's gutter at both boundaries.  A stop end should not have been put where it was put.  It merely diverts the water to the other neighbour's gutter meaning that they get all the water from your roof instead of just half of it.    

Whoever put this stop end in is at fault.  If you cannot get them back to fix it, it is still up to you to restore the gutter back to how the gutter was originally designed to work, i.e. with free flow to both neighbours gutters with no leaks at the joints. 

Jeepers_Creepers

I think Mistral has landed on the main point here; if this is a terrace of three houses (is it, CatLady?) and the houses to each side have downpipes both leading in to soakaways (or drains) and the central house never had a DP, then it was almost certainly built as Mistral outlines - a single gutter going across all three properties with a downpipe towards each far end. 

In which case, whoever stop-ended the gutter between your and your LH neighb's properties is the one who caused the issue. 

I can see how this is now causing a problem for the LH neighbour, since your gutter at the LH end is struggling to carry away all YOUR water to the RH neighb's DP. Also, unless your gutter has been modified, there's a fair chance that it's still sloping - at least from mid-point - towards the LH neighb, so YOUR water is finding it even harder to escape! Ergo it overflows out your LH end and over your neighb's walls (that's called karma...)

Adding your own DP and soakaway would not only be problematical and expensive, but would also be you taking on the responsibility for something that is not your fault. 

As far as I can see, the 'correct' solution is as you yourself suggested - completely renew the whole terrace's guttering with deepflow guttering, correctly aligned in order to divert your water as equally as possible towards both ends, and that should fix it.

Your LH neighb is probably not going to like this - I suspect he wants 'his' DP to carry only 'his' water, but tough. Every time he has a conversation with you, remind him that (a) you ARE trying to sort this problem, but in the correct way, and (b) what he is doing is 'harassing' you, and you feel intimidated and bullied by his manner. ALSO record this on paper for you own records should the guy be daft enough to act on his threats of legal action; you'll be able to demonstrate unreasonable and intimidating behaviour from him, when you have been trying your best to resolve this.

Ok, all that is based on the expectation that this IS a 3-house terrace, and it DID originally have a single shared gutter with two DPs. Are there any similar terraces in the 'hood you can compare yours with?

Finally, yes, your neighb could sue you for damage caused to his property if the situation was as he described - ie YOUR guttering is overflowing on to HIS property due to YOUR lack of maintenance. But from what I understand, that is not the actual situation here, and you are trying to arrive at the correct solution. So he can't. Or he'd fail if he tried.

Should it happen that both neighbs agree that the best solution is to replace the whole caboodle with deepflow, retaining the existing DPs, then I would expect them to at least pay for the materials for their houses - a couple of lengths of gutter and some clips... - but you could make a good gesture by offering to pay for all the labour (after all, you are using 'their' DPs, even tho' you are entitled to...). Tbh, this won't cost a lot more than just doing your own! 

Oh, do your deeds say anything about the gutters and maintenance of the drains? As said above, if it happens that soakaways do have a roughly 10 year lifespan before being blocked up with silt, then I would suggest that the cost of redoing them should be borne equally by all three houses. This will be a lot less than the cost of fitting a new one... 

Are you sure the do go to soakaways in any case? It was quite common for DPs to empty in to the main sewers - in which case they should be working fine.