PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Hello Forumites! In order to help keep the Forum a useful, safe and friendly place for our users, discussions around non-MoneySaving matters are not permitted per the Forum rules. While we understand that mentioning house prices may sometimes be relevant to a user's specific MoneySaving situation, we ask that you please avoid veering into broad, general debates about the market, the economy and politics, as these can unfortunately lead to abusive or hateful behaviour. Threads that are found to have derailed into wider discussions may be removed. Users who repeatedly disregard this may have their Forum account banned. Please also avoid posting personally identifiable information, including links to your own online property listing which may reveal your address. Thank you for your understanding.

We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are - or become - political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
We're aware that dates on the Forum are not currently showing correctly. Please bear with us while we get this fixed, and see Site feedback for updates.

Garden Flooding

135

Comments

  • ParryPal said:
    user1977 said:
    ParryPal said:
    daveyjp said:
    It's surface water flooding, caused when the water can't drain away through the soil because its waterlogged.

    I'd concentrate  at looking at practical solution rather than going legal.  If the garden is just a lawn it will survive, you could fit a sump pump at the lowest point and pump into a surface water drain, or improve drainage and drain to an attenuation tank or soakaway.
    But the solution could be thousands, it would be more cost effective to go to small claims?
    Has anyone advised you that you're entitled to recover those costs?
    No, i'm looking for opinions before taking the matter further.
    You can't claim costs in the small claims court do you're on your own without a lawyer. 

    Do you have a photo of what is happening? 
    Not one I want to post online.

    I pretty sure thats the entire point of small claims, to do it on your own.
  • stuart45
    stuart45 Posts: 4,590 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I'm not a legal expert, but I'd have thought you would struggle to prove they lied on the form. When a house is flooded there's normally a record of it, but parts of a garden with puddles in periods of heavy rain would be different. They could claim they never went on the garden in the winter. Warerlogging on it's own wouldn't count as flooding. 
  • silvercar
    silvercar Posts: 48,692 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Academoney Grad Name Dropper
    Water logging in heavy rainfall is not the same as flooding. If it was, every conveyancer would advise putting something like "the garden gets muddy in winter" on the form to cover their clients.

    If you want your children to go out to play then wellingtons boots and waterproof clothing are required, cheaper than going to court.
    I'm a Forum Ambassador on the housing, mortgages, student & coronavirus Boards, money saving boards. I volunteer to help get your forum questions answered and keep the forum running smoothly. Forum Ambassadors are not moderators and don't read every post. If you spot an illegal or inappropriate post then please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com (it's not part of my role to deal with this). Any views are mine and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.com.
  • fatbelly
    fatbelly Posts: 22,158 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Cashback Cashier
    Start by trying the cheap solutions

    https://www.rhs.org.uk/lawns/waterlogging
  • Doozergirl
    Doozergirl Posts: 34,021 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    ParryPal said:
    ParryPal said:
    user1977 said:
    ParryPal said:
    daveyjp said:
    It's surface water flooding, caused when the water can't drain away through the soil because its waterlogged.

    I'd concentrate  at looking at practical solution rather than going legal.  If the garden is just a lawn it will survive, you could fit a sump pump at the lowest point and pump into a surface water drain, or improve drainage and drain to an attenuation tank or soakaway.
    But the solution could be thousands, it would be more cost effective to go to small claims?
    Has anyone advised you that you're entitled to recover those costs?
    No, i'm looking for opinions before taking the matter further.
    You can't claim costs in the small claims court do you're on your own without a lawyer. 

    Do you have a photo of what is happening? 
    Not one I want to post online.

    I pretty sure thats the entire point of small claims, to do it on your own.
    You've deliberately skipped part of my post.  The bit where the defendants do have a lawyer, paid for by insurance.  You will be in genuinely deep water then. 
    Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
  • Hoenir
    Hoenir Posts: 5,712 Forumite
    1,000 Posts First Anniversary Name Dropper
    ParryPal said:
    user1977 said:
    ParryPal said:
    daveyjp said:
    It's surface water flooding, caused when the water can't drain away through the soil because its waterlogged.

    I'd concentrate  at looking at practical solution rather than going legal.  If the garden is just a lawn it will survive, you could fit a sump pump at the lowest point and pump into a surface water drain, or improve drainage and drain to an attenuation tank or soakaway.
    But the solution could be thousands, it would be more cost effective to go to small claims?
    Has anyone advised you that you're entitled to recover those costs?
    No, i'm looking for opinions before taking the matter further.
    Cover the garden with a roof. That will stop the rain settling on your land.  

    Out of interest where do expect the rain water to flow away to? 
  • Tiglet2
    Tiglet2 Posts: 2,571 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Could there be a reason why the garden floods, such as large trees that have been removed or perhaps a new development where the developers may have carelessly poured concrete away down a drain?  I only ask because this happened to me in a previous property.  If that is a possibility, it might be worth you and your other affected neighbours contacting your waste water board to see if they could put cameras down to look at the pipes to see if they are blocked and therefore not draining excess water away.
  • Hoenir
    Hoenir Posts: 5,712 Forumite
    1,000 Posts First Anniversary Name Dropper
    edited 2 January 2024 pm31 1:05PM
    Tiglet2 said:
    Could there be a reason why the garden floods,
    Our area had half of Decembers normal rainfall in just 24 hours. Hardly surprising that there's still standing water on the lawn. When we haven't had a week of dry weather since. 
  • Slinky
    Slinky Posts: 10,716 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Tiglet2 said:
    Could there be a reason why the garden floods, such as large trees that have been removed or perhaps a new development where the developers may have carelessly poured concrete away down a drain?  I only ask because this happened to me in a previous property.  If that is a possibility, it might be worth you and your other affected neighbours contacting your waste water board to see if they could put cameras down to look at the pipes to see if they are blocked and therefore not draining excess water away.

    My brother started getting aggravation from the owner of a property (X) that backed onto his, claiming that the large old fruit trees in my brother's garden were causing damp in X's ground floor extension about 15 feet from the boundary!  My brother pointed out that his adjacent neighbour (Y) which also backs onto X's garden had removed their large fruit trees that used to be alongside my brother's.Y is a large rebuilt house on a plot which is probably all draining into the original soakaways for the much smaller house that had been there previously. The fruit trees from Y's garden that would have been taking up the water draining down the hill were no longer performing that task. Brother started receiving solicitor's letters and threats of litigation. In the end he gave in and had the trees reduced in size and one removed. The arboriculturist thought the whole situation was mad. 
    Make £2025 in 2025
    Prolific £102.99, Octopoints £3.20, Tesco Clubcard challenges £60, Misc Sales £321
    Total £487.19/£2025 24%

    Make £2024 in 2024
    Prolific £907.37, Chase Interest £59.97, Chase roundup interest £3.55, Chase CB £122.88, Roadkill £1.30, Octopus referral reward £50, Octopoints £70.46, Topcashback £112.03, Shopmium referral £3, Iceland bonus £4, Ipsos survey £20, Misc Sales £55.44
    Total £1410/£2024  70%

    Make £2023 in 2023  Total: £2606.33/£2023  128.8%



  • gwynlas
    gwynlas Posts: 2,058 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    What would help with water logging is if you built a French drain at the lowest point of the garden to help water soak away. You could either do this yourself or employ a contractor as someone mentionned earlier. Seaonal waterlogging is not the same as flooding and is often due to underlying soil conditions or in new build estates the compaction of rubbish and poor depth of topsoil. Given tha developers squeeze as many plots as they can the rain that does fall needs to be absorbed by diminishing open ground causing problems.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 348.4K Banking & Borrowing
  • 252.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 452.4K Spending & Discounts
  • 241K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 617.3K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 175.7K Life & Family
  • 254.1K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.