Water Run-off

We live on a sloping block. The storm water from the house goes into rain water tanks and a rain water drain that discharges onto the road.(All as per council reqirements).

Our neighbour downhill from us whinges constantly about the amount of "normal" water that runs off onto his property when we get our tropical downpours (Far Out North Queensland).

Does anyone know what the legal situation is? For example do we have to stop any natural water running off our property and on to his?

There is an easement with a spoon drain in it running acrosss the top of our property and our three neighbours at the side, but at time we get so much rain that the run-off from the properties above us just shoots straight across the drain and carries on down the hill, adding to our downhill neighbour's woes.

He has talked to the council and they said that they put the existing spoon drain in and that anything else was not their problem. They even said that maintaining the drain is nothing to do with them. (so why is it an easement?)

Any comments appreciated.

Bill

If it is an easement they are responsible for it and you should take it further.

Is the road sealed? Does it have any drains located beside the road? Torrential rain is bloody hard to control. As for responsability I think he is as much as you. You dont want the rain washing away your topsoil but you also dont want to create an olympic sized swimming pool in your front yard just to keep the neighbour dry.

Does the water flow into his house or shed during heavy falls? If the answer is yes then I would push the local council a lot more and even talk to a solicitor regarding your level of responsibility.

Sorry I really am not a great deal of help but a different thought process may be some help ..... I hope so.

Pete

As far as I know you are not permitted to discharge water into your neighbours property. This is different to natural surface flow.
So...
1 The neighbours with the dish drain have a responsibility to ensure that water that enters the drain is not discarged onto your property.
2. You are not responsible for water that naturally flows across your property as long as you have not caused it to concentrate by any physical means.
3. If you take legal advise from people like me its time to change lawyers!

Look at your land title; it will tell you the purpose of the easement. Each state is different and I don't know the law in QLD but I am rather certain the normal run-off IS NOT a neighbourhood problem - if, in fact, the council installed the spoon drains then it seems at the time of subdivision and the granting of residential building permits it identified the likelyhood of flood.
This would be a strong argument in a law court if the problem was to be argued there, because the spoon drains are insufficient - but what standard did the coulcil apply?
The present drought has now been declared "a once in a thousand years event", just as most Victorian coulcils rule on "once in a hundred years flooding" as a standard.
The probable out come would be a shared drainage scheme designed to overcome the torrential downpour. That's a shared scheme between all property owners and the council - I remember a similar situation where a university was asked to develope a system to determine the percentage contributed by adjacent properties in a flooding dispute.
Ho hum!!

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Originally Posted by Doughboy

If it is an easement they are responsible for it and you should take it further.

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Are you sure, I thought that even though it was the council that designated it an easement does not mean that they are responsible for it.

An easement is a portion of land set aside, that cannot be developed, to allow for the passage of water or animals (I have seen that to be the case once) or unrestricted access to underground utilities.

But I may be wrong too!

If you or your house wasnt there, would they still get the same ammount of run off?
If so, what are they on about?

Al :confused:

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Originally Posted by Wood Butcher

Are you sure, I thought that even though it was the council that designated it an easement does not mean that they are responsible for it.

An easement is a portion of land set aside, that cannot be developed, to allow for the passage of water or animals (I have seen that to be the case once) or unrestricted access to underground utilities.

But I may be wrong too!

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An easment is a portion of your land that you are not allowed to build over, whether a shed or what ever.

Al :(

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Originally Posted by Feralbilly

He has talked to the council and they said that they put the existing spoon drain in and that anything else was not their problem. They even said that maintaining the drain is nothing to do with them. (so why is it an easement?)

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If the council has installed the drain I fail to see who else could be responsible for its upkeep.
I have a sewer easement on my property that doesnt mean I'm responsible for upkeeping the sewerline. I have responsabilities in so far as not constructing over the pipe and not covering manholes etc but if the pipe ruptures I sure as hell aint going to fix it.:eek:

A letter to council pointing out that the council have in the past identified a problem and their attemp to rectify the problem has proved insufficient and that if they dont upgrade their infastructure they are placing you and your downhill neighbours property and lives at risk and that they will be legally responsible for any pursuiant damages claims.

Once again don't look to me for legal advise!;)

The beauty of our Commonwealth is that almost every state has different laws on similar situations. What is okay in one state would be illegal in another and possibly allowed but frowned on in another.:p So whatever I say may well be different in Queensland.

As I also live on a sloping block, and I used to have a neighbour from hell living at the back of us where it started to slope back the other way, I had occasions to make certain of the situation in Vic.

Here you are responsible for any water running of from your property onto someone else. It is illegal and if any water, rain, floods or otherwise comes onto your property from another property you are entitled to seek an order from the Magistrate Court to rectify this and obtain damages.

The problem I had was that water run of from the nature strip ended onto his garden and nature strip, and when he found out that it wasn't my responsiblity, he obtained orders to force the Council to put in additional drains to collect it.


Peter.

Thanks guys.

"If you or your house wasnt there, would they still get the same ammount of run off?
If so, what are they on about?

Al :confused:"

To answer Al, if we or our house was not here, the neighbour downslope would actually get more run off as we collect a lot of the storm water from the house roof into water tanks and the remainder is piped to a road reserve that runs down the side of the property. (The neighbour also pipes his storm water run-off to the same road reserve). If our house was not here, the same amount of water would fall over the area equivalent to our roof area and simply run straight down the hill.

I have also found that where the spoon drain at the top of our property runs across another, vacant, block four houses away, the people uphill, when clearing their yard, simply dumped all their rock into the drain. Isn't it fun living close to considerate people?

As we have not been in the house for a full year as yet, I am going to wait and see what happens during the coming wet and then talk to the council if there is a problem (or the neighbour gets stroppy!)

Regards to all, Billy

Your responsibility is to contain run off from your dwelling to a 'legal point of discharge'. End of storey.

What's water run off? My memory isn't that good:confused: :confused: :confused:

Assuming an undeveloped block of land has zero runoff.
Whatever you put on that land, as far as water run off, must not impact upon your neighbours.
Food for thought
- if I had a home on a concrete slab.
Vacant block of land uphill for previous 10 years.
New home proposed covering 60% of site - i.e. 60% of site [roof area ]going into storm water & therefore a change in site conditions on my site.
If I have a footing failure as a result of the differing soil conditions who is responsible - the council for enforcing the reg's ?

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Originally Posted by ausdesign

Your responsibility is to contain run off from your dwelling to a 'legal point of discharge'. End of storey.

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Thanks Peter. That is what I suspected. I don't feel it incumbent upon me to stop water that is flowing on to my property from uphill and divert it away from any property down hill.

Living on a slope has all its own problems.

Bill

Peter are you saying that it is illegal to allow natural surface flow from passing across your boundary, water that has not been concentrated by man made structures or land shaping?

I think Peter's words were "run off from your dwelling". He made no mention about natural run off.

But as Sturdee mentioned, every state and local government has different rules so best to try and find out from them!

Sorry Rowan you are right I misread that.

I did think we were talking about natural flow though not run off from dwellings.