Excessive Water Runoff Property Next Door Due To Un Permitted Modifications

Location: Maryland, USA

Our home is on a triangular corner, meaning we have no direct neighbors to our sides (only streets). Above our property behind there are two separate neighbors. Think of a triangle, where one point is facing south, and the other two are facing West and East.

The neighbor on the east side has modified a strip of grass. Between both properties there used to be a 3-4 foot wide strip of grass. They have a driveway that fits two cars wide and is actually quite long. Since he has a lot of trailers he hitches and also a big truck. He removed the grass and filled all of that in with gravel.

The gravel sits on 6 mil plastic. And our property sits lower on the hill. There is also a garage there with the downspouts facing directly a few feet away from the property line, so all of that runoff over gravel that doesn’t drain because it sits on plastic comes over.

I know this because our insurance company came by to do a check our home conditions, which everything is maintained pristinely, and pointed out the illegal gravel parking pad made, improper slope, and plastic. He made note of that and said that they have to add this as this is a huge risk factor because all that additional runoff can cause serious erosion and foundation problems. Since they have no guarantee that the neighbors even have insurance that they need to make sure we are covered.

The neighbor has damaged our fence a few times with his trailer as it is so heavy that it slides off gravel and hits our fence. First two times were scratches, last time he took out three 4x4 posts that were installed less than two years prior, they were set in concrete, and 4 fence panels obliterated.

I asked him to please not continue to park a trailer on a makeshift parking pad that is not properly secured as this will happen again.

He didn’t pay for any of the damages.

Since he needs that parking space, he now added a bunch of Quikrete over the gravel to make it hard.

Now when it rains it’s even worse. I’ve never had such a massive amount of runoff, and we even added a few more drains In the back just for good measure before any of this to make sure our foundation was protected. We upgraded our gutters to 6 inches as they were old and 4 inches and we have a slate roof. Our drainage pipes that run out are 6-7 inches wide. We never have a problem with water not properly draining.

Since he added to Quikrete to gravel base on plastic, our entire back area floods as all 4 of the drain basins overflow. They still drain but it’s just too much.

He blames the property above his for all the runoff. I explained that having gravel that you park heavy vehicles on will compact, along with it having zero drainage as it sits on plastic, now the concrete has made it worse. He said he can run a drain underground but since his property slopes up that he doesn’t know how he will get it to street. (Obviously he would need to use a pump).

He asked if he could run the pipe downward through our property to get all the way to road. I cannot remember the legal term, but I have read that you cannot increase the amount of runoff onto another property like that without ensuring that you are creating proper drainage.

I feel that if he connects his drain and runs another down our property, there is a huge risk for potential shared or ambiguous liability is the drainage isn’t property maintained or cleaned. I have no control over how they maintain their property (which they do not).