Thread: Water from Neighbour's Block - What Would You Do

Not a nice story. If the house above hasn't been completed to required standards then there may be a case, but with something like this I would seek a professionals opinion. You can get a free 1 hour consultation with a Solicitor - I would get your mate to go and see one and have the legal options explained to him.

I really hope he manages to get it sorted.

Not sure how it runs in the ACT Garry, but a workmate has just been thru the same here.. He went to the council, and they visited said neighbour, gave him a period of time to rectify it (which he did), or the council would revisit, complete the job and then charge the owner to cover the repairs/modifications.

We had similar issue at our house, our suburb was built in the 70's and all of the on property storm water pipes are 90mm down pipes which get squashed flat over time, so no storm water goes thru the pipes. Soon after we moved in I approached the owner upside and he told me where to go.
A little later we had to replace the retaining wall between the properties as it was 35 years old and only timber. Again talked to them and they weren't going to come to the party and said it wasn't their problem.
So when I replaced it I went to the full 1m allowed without an engineers certificate rather than the 700mm it needed. He must have done the same to the people at the rear of his property because they also had a much higher retaining wall then they needed. That's where I got the idea from.
On the plus side for him it keeps his pool topped up.

Mate,

I know the pain.

I had the same issue in the new southern suburbs 20 years ago.

The grief is still reverberating....

Best tell your mate to take the act of god approach, and plant plenty of quick growing water suckers, like hakea, bottle brush and honey myrtle. Photinea are ok too....

That will have a twofold effect., blocking the view of the bogans, and reducing inrush velocity.

I am currently on the bus home looking at the full storm water channels, and overflowing dam, and I am sort of dreading what sort of quagmire I will find when I get home. I suppose on the bright side, the ducks will have a pond to paddle in....

Gumnut

Its illegal to dam overland water flow. You can direct it, but not dam it.
We had to put in a gravel pit to satisfy the local council, but the pit had to have an overflow which lets the water run across the lawn into the neigbouring property. The conncil approved this. It told the neigbour to make his own arrangements to improve the drainage to direct the water on his property, but warned him aganst damming it. The usual arrangement is to direct it to the driveway or road.

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Brisbane obviously has quite different by-laws to Canberra. A council guy came to my place one day to tell me there had been a complaint about my stormwater flooding the house downhill from me and one allotment over. He checked that I had not directed the water directly onto the neighbouring properties which I hadn't. He determined that the water she was complaining about was coming from the next door property directly behind her. This water was quite properly run onto the ground some 10-15 metres from the boundary. Brisbane City Council takes the attitude that water runs downhill and if you live down a slope you have to accept what the good Lord sends you. He told me mine was fine as it was dispersed onto the ground more than the required distance from the boundary. He did advise me to dig a one metre rubble pit with overflow to accept the water and let it disperse some 5 metres or more from the boundary. I have done this. It is a no-no to build a wall or dam to stop the overland flow of water and dam it up on a neighbours property. So your retaining walls at Keperra are quite illegal and the neighbour is entitled to make holes or whatever to send your water to you.

Thanks for those thoughts - something to think about. Compounding the issue is the underlying soil is clay - similar to that that often lines rural dams so very little water soaks into to any depth so on flat ground as this block now is the water just sits in any low spots and the topsoil is like quick sand at the moment.

It looks like the flooding rain may now hold off for a while so we will fix the yard up and get it seeded next week and with the dampness it should root quickly before the next lot of heavy rain.

DiscoMick - in new developments here in Canberra, no surface water is allowed to leave a residential block except via the storm water system. In addition to the house storm water pipes there are three storm water inlets in the 128sq m backyard to take any water away from the block into the stormwater system. These are still capped until the final ground level is determined then these are uncapped and cut to ground level etc. The place next door has been completed for 12 months but their pipes are still capped - this combined with no grass has created the run-off issue.

It would seem you rules in Qld are the opposite.

Cheers

Garry

Garry

I'm wondering if you have mis-interpreted exactly what your responsibilities are, generally overland flow shouldn't be interrupted, only water from impervious areas (roofs/hard stand areas) is captured and redirected. In most places it is illegal to concentrate the overland flow and direct it onto a neighbours property.

This document from ACT Urban services seems to support what I have said.
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/as...r_brochure.pdf

Martyn