Neighbours flooding our land..

wannahouse

Can you help me with appropriate legislation to show neighbour pls?

We have an ongoing issue and he insists its our responsibility- not his, so continues to flood our land.
We don't want to go legal as we want to stay on good terms-he's pig headed, but if i can print and furnish him with proof he's being a jackass, he will back down I hope. i have already told him i am looking forward to the day when he says the words "You were right, and i was wrong!"   
He currently is selling the property (farmland plus house) and the new buyer doesn't know anything about this yet.

We live in the country in Wales
His farmland has a pond (put in at least 80 yrs ago) that receives rainwater drainage off his land and would overflow in winter but for the fact that it also has drains out of it (no one knew where any of these drains were or that they existed) which cross his driveway, runs along the edge of our land, and across our field and discharges god knows where? Probably over the road onto the lower field somewhere?
ALL THE LAND used to belong to one landowner once, and we bought our property off his mother, who sold him a parcel of her land as his farm.

So his driveway would get washed away into almighty pot holes and was hard to drive up, then he put his property on the market, so got the driveway turned over and rerolled and compressed so it looked better and then was annoyed because water kept coming up out of it and running down ruining it again, so while we were away last year, he dug around on our land and discovered there was a sump filled in with dirt with grass growing over it, so dug it all out, which made the sump fill up with water and relieved the water coming up out of his drive.

Then he dug a trench through our yew hedge and in 3 other spots on our property to channel any of the overflowing water across our land instead of his.
So it flooded our land, a few inches deep in our woodlands, then flowed like a white water river over our vegetables garden washing it all away, and then across our septic soaraway in the field and there was so much water all winter our grass rotted!
So we spoke to him and said (nicely) that that is not an acceptable solution, and if his drains are no longer working, he needs to reroute them when he did his trench for the septic and discharge it into the stream on his land instead, as he has no idea where the drainage from his pond goes, in what direction or where the heck its blocked (he's tried jetting it).
But I spoke to him again today as its been almost a year this is going on now and he's insistent that as the blocked drain is on our land, it's our responsibility.
I explained to him that that is not the way the law works and just because his drains draining his lake run across our land at one point, that does not make the water overflow problem ours.
But he insists it does and feels aggrieved that "we" are "allowing his water to wreck his drive because we have not maintained "our" drains!" 
There's no point trying to talk to him further as he won't even read the legislation about drainage serving ones property running across someone else land, and we don't want to have a falling out with him, or go legal, but the flooding cannot happen again this winter.

These drains drain water from his land. not ours, so apart from the fact they run under our field,they have nothing to do with us, nor the maintenance of them, but he won't hear of it and insists that as soon as they cross onto our land, they become ours to look after, which is not correct, so i need to find something specific I can print out and give to him so he can see for himself he's talking b0ll0cks and that it is indeed his responsibility.

The solicitor told us just to chuck down sandbags to stop his water flooding our land, but that will only make him ropable as he thinks already this issue is due to US not maintaining these drains which aren't ours, but he beleives are!

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Section62

wannahouse said:

These drains drain water from his land. not ours, so apart from the fact they run under our field,they have nothing to do with us, nor the maintenance of them, but he won't hear of it and insists that as soon as they cross onto our land, they become ours to look after, which is not correct, so i need to find something specific I can print out and give to him so he can see for himself he's talking b0ll0cks and that it is indeed his responsibility.

I think we're going to need some kind of sketch plan to work out what is happening here...

But on the BiBs above, the relevant law is likely to be riparian ownership. Which means if a watercourse is on your land you are (usually) responsible for maintaining it.  Or at least that's the case in England - being in Wales might make a difference so you need to bear that in mind.

The question is whether the drain(s) are watercourses to which riperian ownership applies. It is common with farmland to find old watercourses (e.g. ditches) that have been piped or culverted and then filled in. Although what's there now might look like a drain (pipes or culvert), if it was once a watercourse then it still will be.

But if it was originally constructed as a drain (using pipes) then usually it won't be a watercourse (unless it was constructed to divert an existing watercourse, for example).

The significance of that is a drain can be constructed on someone else's land by agreement, with the beneficiary of the drain remaining responsible for maintaining it.  If that's the case here then you are probably right.

But if the drain is a watercourse then riparian ownership is likely to apply.

At a guess, an 80+ year old pond is likely to have drained into an open ditch originally. Ponds were often dug to provide water for livestock, open ditches help keep livestock in fields, and larger diameter drainpipes were expensive. So an open ditch was an optimum solution.

But you need to find some documentary evidence (either way). Check your deeds and see if there is any mention of a drain, or agreement to maintain one.

Then check old OS maps to see if there is anything indicating a ditch or stream - but they aren't likely to show drains.  There's a really good free resource here - https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/  The "OS 25 Inch, 1892-1914" series is a good starting point.

It isn't easy to identify water features on the old black and white maps, but sometimes you'll see direction of flow arrows like this -



 - otherwise field boundaries were usually shown with a single line which could represent a hedge, a hedge and ditch, a ditch on its own, or some kind of fence. So not very helpful.  Some councils maintained a set of OS maps with known watercourses marked on by hand in blue ink or pencil - so checking with the local archives is something else to consider.

Bear in mind too that anything indicating an open ditch or stream implies watercourse which implies riparian ownership. Proving the drain has always been a drain and you aren't responsible for it is going to be far harder than discovering you are, unless you can find any relevant agreement.

The official guidance on riparian ownership in Wales is here -
https://naturalresources.wales/flooding/managing-flood-risk/a-guide-to-your-rights-and-responsibilities-of-riverside-ownership-in-wales

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

wannahouse said:

 he dug around on our land and discovered there was a sump filled in with dirt with grass growing over it, so dug it all out, which made the sump fill up with water and relieved the water coming up out of his drive.

Then he dug a trench through our yew hedge and in 3 other spots on our property to channel any of the overflowing water across our land instead of his.

If they are clearly on your land fill the sump and trenches back in and tell the neighbour if he wishes to take any action he'll have to declare a dispute on the property information forms as part of the sale. 

Section62

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If they are clearly on your land fill the sump and trenches back in and tell the neighbour if he wishes to take any action he'll have to declare a dispute on the property information forms as part of the sale. 

It isn't clear what the 'sump' actually is, but if it forms part of a watercourse (e.g. a manhole, inspection chamber, silt trap, etc) then it would be an offence to fill it in (without the consent of the relevant authority). The OP shouldn't do that without getting formal legal advice first.

The trenches are trickier. Drainage law is complex, and local bylaws and regulations mean rights and responsibilities can be different in specific areas. In some cases landowners have the right to enter onto adjacent property to carry out work to prevent or remove the risk of flooding, not necessarily needing the other owner's consent.  I wouldn't say the neighbour definitely had the right to dig the trenches, but if filling them in causes the neighbour's land to flood again then the OP could have problems. Again, in my view the OP shouldn't do that without getting formal legal advice first.

As for the property information forms, this is an agricultural holding, not domestic. Anyone buying an agricultural holding will have an expectation that they will be buying into some kind of dispute about boundaries, ditches, or drains, somewhere on the holding. It goes with the territory and shouldn't phase them, unless they are totally inexperienced in owning farmland.

womble12345

Cant you just ignore it for a while and then when the new owner arrives mention the issue and get him to fix it?

wannahouse

I should have made clear, what I called "drains" are actually old Victorian ceramic drain pipes, not a ditch.

Ours and his properties were all once owned by the same person.
The his parents bought all the land around 55-60 yrs ago, and the drain pipes way predate them, as they knew nothing about them until they're not working.

The "pond" is on his property and shown on the map (not bordering properties).
I guess at some stage someone built that pond for whatever reason, and piped water collecting elsewhere on their field to it to fill it up.
So its not a watercourse.

The thing I referred to as a "sump" is just a square hole in the ground, about 60 x 60 cm I guess, that the pipe under his drives runs into, and then changes direction to run alongside the drive on our side underground. I guess it should have once had a man hole cover over it, but until last yr, no one knew it was there as it was full of soil and had lawn growing over it!

He found it and dug it out while we were away, without our permission, and also had it jetted to try to open with the pieps unsuccessfully and we came home to find two piles of dirt on either side of it, and a trench dug through our hedge to direct all of the over flow from that onto our land, as once he dug it out, obviously it filled up there and had no where to go.

I have an historic map and although the pond is shown on it, no drainage pipes or ditches are.

theoretica

I wonder if the drains are a red herring - as they could well have been out of use for decades. Do you have any idea how long the water has been running down his drive for?  You didn't have a problem with flooding, he has made improvements to his land and altered the drainage (maybe trying to divert it into ancient blocked drains) and now you do. 

Section62

wannahouse said:

I should have made clear, what I called "drains" are actually old Victorian ceramic drain pipes, not a ditch.

Yup, that is what I understood you to mean by 'drain' in this case.  The question is whether those pipes were laid in a brand-new trench (so constructed as a drain), or laid into an existing ditch (so culverting a watercourse).

To avoid being responsible for maintaining those drains under your land you will probably need to be able to prove that they are the former, rather than the latter.

In the absence of any documentary evidence, the only option you really have left to gather evidence would be to arrange trial pits to be dug perpendicularly across the drain to see if there is any evidence of changes in materials (e.g. soils, clays, gravel) - in effect a kind of archeological dig.  A piped-in ditch is likely to still have traces of organic material and evidence of a "V"-shape from the original sides. A constructed drain would typically lack those features, and depending on the soil types and working methods, a vertically-sided trench might be identifiable.

But you would need to balance the cost of getting that done against the cost of accepting responsibility and having the drains jetted out. (see below)

Incidentally, in case it changes things, ceramic pipes are not necessarily Victorian. They are still manufactured and used today. Also, due to their cost, it was common to reuse old pipes, so even if you found an old date on one it doesn't necessarily give a good guide to when they were installed. Equally, a more modern date might reflect a repair, not the original construction.

wannahouse said:

The "pond" is on his property and shown on the map (not bordering properties).
I guess at some stage someone built that pond for whatever reason, and piped water collecting elsewhere on their field to it to fill it up.
So its not a watercourse.

As said already, that's only the case (at least as far as English law goes) if the pipes weren't laid into an existing ditch/watercourse, or constructed to divert a watercourse.

Unlined ponds wouldn't normally need water piped into them to fill them up. Provided the bottom is at least as low as the level of the water table, the pond will naturally start to accumulate water.  So it is more likely that drains leading into the pond were constructed for land drainage, or are piped-in ditches.

wannahouse said:

The thing I referred to as a "sump" is just a square hole in the ground, about 60 x 60 cm I guess, that the pipe under his drives runs into, and then changes direction to run alongside the drive on our side underground. I guess it should have once had a man hole cover over it, but until last yr, no one knew it was there as it was full of soil and had lawn growing over it!

I'd call that an inspection chamber then, having been provided where there is a significant change in direction.

In rural situations it isn't uncommon for land drainage inspection chambers and manholes to have timber (e.g. old railway sleepers) laid on top, rather than having a proper cover. The timbers are more robust than manhole covers, they're cheaper, and work just fine if there's no need to stop foul air coming out of the pipes below.  I'd speculate that if these drains haven't been maintained properly for decades then it is possible that a former timber covering has rotted away. If not, it is also possible the chamber was always an open one and never had a cover.

wannahouse said:

He found it and dug it out while we were away, without our permission, and also had it jetted to try to open with the pieps unsuccessfully and we came home to find two piles of dirt on either side of it, and a trench dug through our hedge to direct all of the over flow from that onto our land, as once he dug it out, obviously it filled up there and had no where to go.

So, unless you can prove that someone else is responsible for maintaining these drains, you are in a situation where the other landowner might have a legal right to require you to get the drains cleared and into a condition capable of accepting drainage from his land.

Unless you are willing to accept that responsibility (and I'm not necessarily saying you should) I think you are going to need professional advice from a solicitor specialising in land ownership and drainage issues, with knowledge of the law within your local area. Only they will be able to give you full and accurate advice on your rights and responsibilities.

I would however suggest you investigate the cost of getting the drains cleared (it's difficult to judge without having a lot more information) and see how that compares to the cost of legal advice and any surveys/trial pits etc that you might have to pay for in order to rebut the other landowner's claim - assuming they (or the eventual new owners) opt for the legal route. The legal advice would then guide you further as to whether it is likely to be cheaper/easier to accept responsibility, or to go through the whole legal process if that is what it comes to.