Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Protect property from neighbor
We have a problem with our neighbor. The rain runs off his roof and floods our backyard. This occurs because he put in a sidewalk along the side of his house. Prior to the side walk, it was just a dirt area that would absorb the water. The sidewalk slopes toward our yard. He asked, and we allowed, to put in a drainage system through our front yard to the street, but he has failed to put up the gutters and hook into the drain system! We have a high fence separating the property with no easy or cost effective way to keep the water from running into our yard. We have to manually bale the water out and into the drain system. With the rainy season upon us, without rain so far, what are our rights?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Protect property from neighbor
A downslope landowner has a right versus an upslope owner to not be harmed by the latter's unreasonable changes in the natural drainage of excess water. See Keys vs. Romley, decided by the California Supreme Court in 1966 and reported at 64 Cal.2d 396....your county law librarian can find the case for you.
The key here is what would a court find reasonable? If the neighbor has an easy "fix" and you don't have one, you would probably win a lawsuit.
Between neighbors, I always recommend negotiation before filing a suit, but it wouldn't hurt to read the Keys case so you are negotiating from a position of knowledge.
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