Neighbours garage water ingress (claims my fault)

Rosa_Damascena

Leazes1 said:

Sandtree said:

Bendy_House said:

As I understand it, the neighbour cannot simply 'claim' that the water is caused by your patio; they need to 'prove' it. Eg, it's either 'obvious', or else they have a surveyor out to confirm it.

Even if they prove its caused by the OP's patio that isnt sufficient in itself... its not uncommon for a washing machine in an upper floor flat to break and cause damage to the flat below but just proving the water came from the washing machine doesnt create liability for the damage. 

In most cases it is necessary to prove negligence not just the source of the water... was it reasonably predictable that the creation of the patio would cause this problem? The answer to which could be complicated if the OP knew of the poor construction of the garage prior to installing the patio.

The construct of the neighbours' garage never occurred to me until I was approached about the issue.

As I say I think his issue could be cured by tanking the wall to stop further damp or water ingress and it would be a fairly cheap fix.

Don't even go there, it will give your neighbour the incorrect impression that you are in a position to help.

Bendy_House

As Rosa says.

If this neighb is unreasonable or irrational, you can be pretty sure that anything you say will be digested - and used against you if at all possible. Very likely, at the forefront of this person's mind, is 'how wrong-done they are', coupled with trying to find blame elsewhere.

Your perfectly reasonable suggestion of tanking will likely be turned around in their head as "Ah, so you knew there could be a problem, and yet you built your patio against my wall..."

Stick to the facts as you know them; they had their garage built against what had always been a slightly higher level of ground on your land. And, they built it right on the boundary, so don't even have the option of clearing the land or French draining on their side. Taking these two factors into account, if water is now coming in, it must be due to either a fault in the build construction, or the build not having taken the existing ground factors into account in the first place. End of. It's up to them to demonstrate otherwise.

Ant555

Is their whole garden at a lower level than yours or does it look like the area was 'dug out' to construct the garage.

Also, where does the water from their garage roof drain -does it run off somewhere or does it flow into a drain.

It doesnt really affect the advice already given though.

Leazes1

Ant555 said:

Is their whole garden at a lower level than yours or does it look like the area was 'dug out' to construct the garage.

Also, where does the water from their garage roof drain -does it run off somewhere or does it flow into a drain.

It doesnt really affect the advice already given though.

The whole garden is at a lower level than ours 8-10 cm lower than ours always has been since we moved in 28 years ago.

There’s a guttering on our side of the garage which runs into a shared drain (which our aco drain also runs into). 

Thanks for all the help folks.