Neighbor's downspout flooding our basement

Greetings brownstoners.

Our next door neighbor’s downspout is on our property going directly into the ground. They replaced it to a point but the portion below grade is so corroded and every time it rains we take water in. There is no question that the downspout is the culprit because it only gets wet in that corner and now the water coming in is a rust color likely from their corroded, rusty pipe. Whether it is disconnected or just corroded, I’m not sure, nor do I care.

We’ve been discussing this with them, literally, for months and no action. Just a head in the sand routine and, yes, they can afford to fix it.

Thinking of just disconnecting, plugging the hole and running some gutters/pipes down the fence line and on to their property.

Advice?

bedstuytownhouse

in General Discussion 6 years ago

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hkapstein | 6 years ago

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I’m not giving any legal advice here but you can look into the implications of the adverse property law and consult an attorney if necessary. I might guess that it would be most relevent if they had something on your property for 10 years prior to 2008. If you got into a legal dispute with them, perhaps this could become an issue. If the pipe were moved off your property now, I doubt it would ever come up, particularly if you maintained exclusive control over the area for the next 10 years. Not saying this would apply to your situation, but it’s something to be aware of. Also there are some rules that apply to minor encroachements being able to stay if they’ve been there a couple years. Again I don’t know for sure how it applies to your situation, and I’m not advising you on what you should do. If it were me, I’d try to negotiate to get it off my property voluntarily, and not do an expensive legal exploration over the property rights, but that’s just what I would do. If there is an adverse property issue, there may be liability for your title insurance or for your surver yor’s insurance company, but not necessarily.

Something else to to think about. Is your house up to code? Do you really want people taking a look at what’s going out there? Is there anything your neighbor could complain about that’s happening on your property? Also how much time do you want to spend dealing with this vs just paying a few thousand to get it resolved.

bedstuytownhouse | 6 years ago

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I cannot say how long it’s been there but we’ve owned the property for nine years. Does that matter?

hkapstein | 6 years ago

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There are issues you need to think about here. One is adverse property. If something was there for 10 years visible and without permission, prior to the law change which I think around 2008, they have the right to keep it there and possibly own the land it’s on. However it’s not legal to discharge stormwater into a hole in the ground, it needs to go to the sewer in a way the complies with the rules for a combined sewer, or go to a dry well that meets certain complicated requirements. I would say your best would be to route it into their sewer, which would probably cost a few thousand tops on the DL. If they have to bring into code compliance it will be a big pain and that’s your leverage here. You could pay part of the cost, that would soften the blow and give you more control of the process. Give them an easy solution, any sort of dispute will end up costing more than the repair.

bedstuytownhouse | 6 years ago

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We purchased the house like this and these people are absolute nightmares to deal with and that’s an understatement.

They sent a family member to see and they acknowledged the issue and said they’d get back to us with a solution.

We noticed last night that we have cracks in our cellar ceiling which was just installed in the last six months.

Are we within our rights to just disconnect it, cement the hole they have going into the ground and run a pipe down the fence line?

resident2 | 6 years ago

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Does this encroachment show on your survey / title documents? In which case you cannot just disconnect it / stop it up & redirect it. If it does not show up on your survey / title documents, how did it come to be on your property?
If it is on your property legally. I would go ahead & fix the problem myself, document it all the way along the process (pictures etc) & then send them the bill.
It will save you in the long run from more damage, stress etc.

If it is not lagaly on your property; then yest redirect it back onto their property.
It is illegal for one neighbor to vent, exhaust, drain anything from their property onto a neighboring property.

hkapstein | 6 years ago

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Dob could issue a violation for this but I don’t know if I’d want to go that route.

fiordiligi | 6 years ago

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I’m in the middle of a row of attached houses. A few years ago, the next door neighbor’s rear downspout, which descended right on the party line between the two buildings, opened along its rear seam, against the houses, and water started coming through my rear party wall. He refused to do anything, since the water wasn’t coming through HIS wall. So I persuaded him to let me replace it (at my expense, which wasn’t much), and got written permission to cross the property line in order to do so – much cheaper than litigation. I scheduled the downspout guys for a time I knew the neighbor wouldn’t be home, and then had them move the new downspout a couple feet over onto his property, (replacing a small chunk of his rear roof gutter to accommodate the new downspout hole). So the next time his downspout leaks, the damage will be to his property and not mine. Done.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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this was dealt with where we live before i moved in, the previous owner of my house and the neighboring one placed a concrete knee wall between the two properties so the water on my side would run off away from the houses. in addition, my current neighbor went to home depot and bought extensions for both of our drain pipes and ran them down the property line. to keep the peace, i paid him back for the pipe he bought for mine. it works out well as i have plantings that can use the water from his drain so i let him drain it into my yard and not his own. hope your situation can go this way and not this:

the person next to the homeowner across the street ripped a drain line out (i think it belonged to the neighboring house but was on the other houses property since day naught) and it flood the basement of that house and it caused all sorts of damage. it ended up in court and i think the judgement was 5k. so they can be on the hook for this-