Land drains & neighbours

[KandR]

Another soggy clay soil problem I'm afraid!

Our garden slopes away from the house, to a low point towards the bottom. As our garden is longer than our immediate neighbours we end up with our garden being neighboured by a total of 4 other properties. When the property was built (late 1960s) some form of land drain has been put in and we have an inspection chamber for it at the bottom of our garden. The bottom of our garden constantly floods at the slight bit of rain, (not just soggy, 5-6 inches of standing water over the whole 3m x 2m area which is lower than the rest). My partner has pumped out what looks like it is supposed to be a soakaway under the inspection chamber several times, he has also dug out all the silt twice in the last 6 months however as the original builders made no effort to dig below the layer of clay, even de-silted it is to all intensive purposes a muddy hole with a clay base.

We know we need to resolve the soakaway problem however the issue is made worse by the fact we can see 4 pipes
feeding into the "soakaway". One is from our garden, the other 3 appear to be feeding in from 3 neighbouring gardens /
properties. Do these people have a right to dump all their water into our garden or can we cap off these pipes?

Are there any rules / regulations etc covering drainage (particularly in relation to rights of our neighbours) which we need to take into account in trying to resolve our problem?

Appreciate your advice.

Kind regards

[matt h]

This is a common fault on built up areas
The other properties are not normally allowed to drain into your property, but check your deeds, as there may be some communal agreement. It is normally a case of the developer cutting corners... I have come across similar estates where soil pipes are routed to septic tanks in one property only, and the owner of that property has to get the tanks cleared every 6 months or so. You could either insist that the original builder rectifies the problem... depending om the age of the property that is.. or could insist that your neighbours create their own soakaways. My advice is to go to your local planning office and seek their advice before approaching your neighbours armed with the facts. Failing that you could always charge your neighbours for water removal

[moggy]

A builder has built a house at the back of my garden they then dug up my soakaway and destroyed it, it was 2 meters away from the new build.The soakaway has been in use since 1939 now when it rains we have serious water problems.
A. should the builder have done this.
B. what should he have done.
C.where do we stand with building regs.
D.who gives the OK to sell the property, is this the council to check all regs are complied with.
We do have a boundary dispute on this strip of land and both surveyors agree our garden is short 1.3 to 1.6 meters this is where the soakaway was. Any thoughts????

[matt h]

if the builder has destroyed your soakaway on your land, then he is unfortunately responsible for putting it right. He should have checked drainage rights etc before carrying out any excavations. did you sell the land? I can see a long legal battle coming here. Building regulations and planning departments should have checked the build, but will shirk responsibility. I suggest that you contact their offices and the land registry to check your borders... Had one estate locally where the builder built over into another property, and when they tried to sell, they had to reimburse the other owner to a tune of £130,000! Ouch!