Shared Rainwater Drainage issues

Salb22

My neighbour discharges his rainwater into an open concrete gulley at the rear of our garden/house. The rainwater gulley takes his rainwater away and mine into a shared soakaway at the bottom of my garden. The gulley wraps around my house and is cracked, broken and need updating badly. The previous owners of both properties replaced the soakaways in 2009 and shared costs between them.

There is also a front concrete rainwater drainage gulley at the front of my house which works in the exact same way and another soakaway there that is shared. It takes water away from the front of both houses. Both previous neighbours paid to replace it in 2009 and replaced the soakaway sharing costs.  My neighbour is new only lived in the house 4 years and when approached about replacing the rear concrete drainage he said "If its not in the deeds then I am not liable" he also claims he had a prescriptive easement and could do what he wanted and we are liable for all costs to his drainage and won't discuss it. We are stuck as both gulleys need replacing and soakways. We can't afford to maintain both properties his house is 7 bedroom???? My house just small 4 bedroom house.

Woolsery

He may be right as regards not needing to contribute. If the previous owners had a different arrangement not arising from a legal requirement, that has no bearing on the situation now.

pinkshoes

What do your and his deeds say about it? It must be mentioned if rainwater collected on his property is diverted into your garden??

Salb22

As far as we can see nothing in the deeds. We just cannot believe we are going to be responsible for all of the drainage pipes, soakaways and down pipes on his entire house. Nothing came up when we bought our house its shocked us to say the least.

The front concrete gulley actually straps to the side of his house there is also a roof box gutter between both houses that drains rainwater into this gulley that he refuses to pay for. It would also mean pointing his entire wall of his house 10m x 12m in size as it is part of the box gutter between the two houses and needs regularly maintaining so water doesn't come into our property. It's scary costs we have spent £6000 so far due to leaks and to avoid damage to our house.

If there are no deeds to say who pays what why are we liable for all costs suddenly? 

Woolsery

We  have a neighbour whose septic tank drains into our land. It's a long standing arrangement and there's nothing in the title documents about it, but they have a right of drainage established by prescriptive easement. This is less of a problem than your situation, and we have no repairing obligation or intent, but it shows such arrangements can come about.

Did you have a full survey and did your surveyor comment on the drainage at all?

Salb22

No full survey simply looked at the state of our gulleys and said they needed replacing in his report. 

Salb22

I just don't understand how someone can use our soakaways and drainage channels and it not be a shared responsibility to maintain it. The previous owners of both houses shared costs for 26 years no issues.

mabbit

As a comparison, public footpaths across private land are required to be maintained by the landowner with no contribution provided by the users.

user1977

Nothing like this needs to be in the titles (particularly where e.g. drainage is a natural consequence of gravity), and I don't think there's any general implication that a right to use an easement comes with an obligation to contribute to its maintenance. Not sure if an established practice to the contrary (i.e. of sharing the costs) makes any difference.

TripleH

Sadly there are d!cks who take advantage of a situation that has worked historically by reasonable people.

Focus on protecting your property, that's all you can do. If it means your neighbour is a free rider sadly thats life. Don't go out your way to help them in other aspects though.

Section62

Salb22 said:

I just don't understand how someone can use our soakaways and drainage channels and it not be a shared responsibility to maintain it. The previous owners of both houses shared costs for 26 years no issues.

Do the soakaway(s) really need replacing so soon?  What's wrong with them?

One strategy to consider is having your own separate soakaways built, so you can disuse and disclaim any involvement/liability for the existing*.  That only works if the neighbours run-off won't cause you problems if the soakaway(s) aren't working properly.

If there is nothing in the deeds saying you are responsible for providing and/or jointly maintaining the soakaway(s) then the neighbour will have some difficulty persuading a court that you should pay for their new soakaway(s) (although nothing can be predicted with certainty when it comes to legal action)

*If the existing soakaway(s) have failed that quickly then it does act as some justification for you adopting a radically different approach for disposing of your own surface water, compared to the existing arrangements.