Rainwater gutter drainage- semi detatched house (Half is still in council ownership)

Flouromug

I own a semi detatched house- the other half of the semi detatched is still in local authority ownership. I have to be very honest - I dont talk to the neighbours attached to me as I have previously had issues when they planted a big tree (the sort that would be planted in a park and it grew to over 2 storeys high within 4 years) about 1 metre from the house and I had to pay to get it cut down. I know the easiest suggestion would be to talk to them but I dont think I would get any answers. I would prefer to approach the council direct, if its possible to do so. 

They have a different size roof guttering to me. our guttering meets at the boundary of our houses and my side is always dripping in heavy rain so I know that I need to get it fixed. The guttering for both houses drains into a down pipe on their side over the fence, but then it has an elbow bend under the fence and discharges into a ceramic type gully (1930's style) on my side. the elbow bend is fully wedged under the fence and it looks like the fence which is at least 10 years old has been put over the top of it. So all pipework must be 10+ years old. This was not noted on the survey when I bought the house 10 years ago. 

This gully has been buried under a bush which has been there for as long as I can remember (10 years) I didn't pay attention to it being there or check it, which i suppose I should have done as part of general house maintenance. There is evidence (holes in the wall) that at one point there was a down pipe attached to my house. But now there is just one small down pipe serving both houses, on their side which then discharges into the gully on my side. This gully is now completed silted up with soil and floods whenever it rains. I've tried to dig it out as best as I can. 

What I'm worried about is that the drainage system is completely blocked up and will need an expensive dig out by someone professional or even a complete renewal (whatever that entails) 

Would the council be obliged to contribute to it as 50% of the water is coming from their roof? Could I put a new down pipe on my side and block off theirs so its only taking MY house roof water? 

Im really scared this could cost a fortune and the council might legally make me do this if they have a right to discharge into my gully. 

Im going to request a copy of my deeds to see if it says anything....

Albermarle

If the gully was fully clear of soil etc , where would the water end up?
In other words what is at the end of the gully ?

Nobbie1967

A lot of houses have this sort of arrangement with shared downpipes. On mine the front drains to a neighbour’s gully and the rear drains to ours. I doubt you can block off theirs, so you need to clear your gully. I’ve done mine before and you need to get down to the bottom which was about 40cm down on mine, where it meets a horizontal pipe. I just wore a pair of red waterproof gloves and pulled the stuff out by hand. Once I’d taken out everything to the bottom, I chucked a bucket of water down to clear out any debris that was in the horizontal pipe.

Bigphil1474

If the drain is just blocked, you just need to do your best to clear it. If it's damaged, then usually these are either jointly owned, or can be the responsibility of the water company. We had one at our old house. It actually collapsed and caused subsidence to our side. The water board argued it wasn't there's but the insurance pursued it and the water company had to dig it all out and replace the pipe from the house to the road. It's probably easier dealing with the council than your neighbour to be fair, I'd see that as a positive.

I'd also get rid of the bush near the drain while you are at it. Depends what sort of bush, but the roots could be causing all sorts of damage.

There may have been a downpipe on your side when they were both council houses, and the council have done some work and changed it.