To what extent am I responsible for stormwater erosion damage into neighbor's yard?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A little background first – I’ve lived at my current location for 11 years now. 3 years ago most of the neighborhood burned down in a wildfire and has since been rebuilt.
Last year, after my house was finished, but before I had my landscaping completed, we had a very heavy rainstorm and a lot of the soil from my yard washed into the neighbor’s freshly landscaped yard (it’s a sloped lot and they’re down hill from me, after all).

There was quite a bit of damage from mud sliding into their rocks, so when my landscaping was being completed, I asked my landscapers to clean up and redo the affected portion of my neighbor’s yard. I felt it was fair enough since my temporary erosion mitigation wasn’t effective enough. I paid well over $1,500 to have them clean up the neighbor’s damage. There was not much doubt I was responsible in this case since I took too long to get my final landscaping in place (despite my silt fence and erosion barriers I put up).
The new landscaping in my yard now has some very heavy amount of river rocks in a dry river bed type of formation with heavy landscaping cloth, all in a deep trench since a large portion of the uphill neighbors’ lots funnel into this area going across my yard. Also, our lots are fairly narrow, so there can be quite a bit of water flowing through this small area. My landscaping looks extremely beefy, and I thought over-engineered, relatively speaking.

However, this past week we had an exceedingly heavy amount of rainfall, to the extent of flash floods causing cars to float away on neighboring streets.

Since the amount of water was so heavy, it went beyond my dry creekbed area and washed some mud and mulch from the area next to it into the neighbor’s yard.

I figured I’d go out and clean up the mess on my property and be done with it this weekend, but my downhill neighbor left a note that she had already gotten quotes from a landscaper and would be holding me responsible to clean it all up.

I’m not 100% sure I’m financially liable in this case. I thought I went far beyond what I should need to do to mitigate potential downhill damage caused by the drainage going through my yard, but we had a very extreme amount of rain in that small period of time. Do I have to be responsible for every extreme event that might potentially affect my downhill neighbor? Most of the cases I could find by searching show that I’m definitely not responsible for water that flows onto the neighbor’s yard, but what if that water happens to take some mud/rocks/mulch with it even though I’ve put a lot of effort into mitigating such things?

To preserve neighborly harmony, I’m probably just going to have my landscaper clean up the mess in the neighbor’s yard as he’s doing mine (to the tune of another $1,000), but I’d like to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again in the future.

2

Was a Disaster declared?

3

Here’s how I understand responsibility (at least in my neck of the woods): If lightning hits a healthy tree in your yard and it falls on your neighbor’s roof, it’s his responsibility to repair the damage. You didn’t cause the tree to fall, and it wasn’t a hazard before nature caused it to fall over.

On the other hand, if Emerald Ash borers kill an ash tree in your yard, and you let it sit for 5 years before a good rain causes it to fall over onto your neighbor’s roof, you are responsible. You knew, or should have known, that the tree was in danger of falling over.

In your circumstances, I can’t see how you’d be held responsible for damage done to your neighbor’s yard because of a freak flash flood. You can’t control gravity and you deliberately graded your yard to mitigate water flowing into his yard. Now had you left your sprinkler on for a month solid, then that would be a different matter.

I know you’re trying to be a nice guy here, but don’t assume that you’ll keep peace with an unreasonable neighbor for long. Water will come down from the sky when it will and no one can be expected to landscape their yard so that it is impermeable to every disaster.

4

No disaster declaration. It was, oddly, a very localized rainstorm (though, that’s not too uncommon here in the foothills).

5

I think your neighbor is being a dick. If cars were being washed away, what the hell do they expect of you? Are you supposed to just pave your whole yard and chain down all your outdoor belongings just in case? Mulch and mud washed into their yard during a flash flood, and it’s your fault? Dicks.

I’d probably ignore the note for now, see what comes of it. If they continue to bug you, probably best to have a lawyer send them a nastygram. I’m usually one to bend over backwards to maintain good neighbor relations, but this is ridiculous.

6

Yeah, no, not your problem. You already took more than ample efforts to mitigate the issue.

7

Instead of calling a lawyer first, I’d call my insurance agent.

8

Agreed.

9

Most insurance policies will have boilerplate re “Acts of God” (or whatever term is now used).

A flash flood would likely fall under the “Acts of God” clause and not be covered by insurance.

By the same token, the OP is also not responsible for the flash flood, and cannot be held liable.

Unless the earlier action of cleaning neighbor’s landscaping can be ruled as creating an enforceable relationship by a court.

Say ‘Hi’ to the insurance agent on your way to the lawyer.

10

More facts are needed before we can start saying who is the dick. For example, are these all newly constructed homes in a new development? That would pose an entirely different situation than if the downslope neighbor had lived there for years with no similar issues until the OP built his home. How was the neighbor’s property affected (or how do other similarly situated neighbors interact) in these “not uncommon” situations? I’d check the local government’s ordinances to see what guidance they might offer. Also, if this has happened twice in such a short time, what steps could minimize the likelihood of recurrence?

Dredging back from prop law 3 decades ago, I’d imagine someone is going to be learning about the terms “lateral and subjacent support”! :wink: In very general terms, you are not allowed to develop your property in a manner that significantly alters the flow of water with respect to your neighbors.

11

That’s one reason why he SHOULDN’T kowtow to the neighbor’s demands now. If he does ask the neighbor to contact his insurance company, and the insurance company disclaims liability, that might be helpful to him should the neighbor actually take him to small claims court. I’d imagine that insurance agents can be considered experts in what constitutes an act of God.

12

Well, this is where it gets difficult and interesting. Both the houses in question (and all the ones nearby) burned in a fire three years ago, and were since rebuilt. I lived in the house before the fire and chose to stay and rebuild. The neighbor downstream from me moved into her house after a developer bought the lot and rebuilt it. My house was finished about when construction was starting on the downhill house.

Before the fire, there were never any drainage issues in this spot. I think it’s a combination of the new houses being rebuilt with a larger footprint, more xeriscaping and impervious surfaces, and oddly extreme weather the past few years that lead to this being a problem when it previously wasn’t. Additionally, the downstream neighbor’s lot was significantly re-formed when the new house was built on it. To make matters worse, Comcast and CenturyLink both placed new utility boxes right in the middle of the drainage area, further complicating the landscape design.

The first time this happened, I can completely understand why I was responsible for the cleanup. It took me too long to get my landscaping in place and my temporary erosion mitigation barriers were not up to the task. (there’s a whole other story with the HOA taking way too long to approve my landscaping plan, which pushed me into the rainy season, but that’s a grumble for another time). I paid my landscaper to clean the neighbor’s lot and told them to pay special attention to the problematic drainage area when designing and working on my lot.

So there’s where I thought I was done. I had a professionally installed and designed landscape with special attention paid to the problematic drainage area that was properly maintained and showed no prior issues, but that was wiped away with a rainstorm far more extreme than anything I’ve experienced in the area.

I’m just kind of… done… with dealing with after-effects of the fire, you know? It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

13

My experience dealing with water, basements etc
Is you are not responsible at all in these situation. Neighbor builds a house at higher elevation, the resulting changes to the land scape results in more water flowing downhill, your basement now floods where it never had in the past. You are shit out of luck.

My response would be not my problem. Your nieghbor needs to take action on thier property to resolve the ongoing issue. You’ve been far too generous.

14

Interesting - and complicated situation. Involvement of an HOA may introduce yet more factors. What do the HOA rules say about resolving such disputes, or liability if improvements were approved?

I’m a lawyer, but far from an expert, and I don’t even know where you live. But if it were me, I’d involve my insurer and a lawyer to see what can be done to resolve this situation once and for all, rather than having to be revisited every time you get a heavy rain.

Everyone changing the drainage on their lots makes it interesting. Sounds like you are making a reasonable effort, but what if that effort simply isn’t good enough given the changed situation? I’ve never encountered any discussion of property rights that simply says the uphill owner can do what they want and the downhill neighbor is shit-out-of-luck.

Gotta love the idea of all these folk on a hillside building larger footprints with more impervious surfaces! :smack: Heck, the folk uphill of you might be contributing to the problem if they changed things such that you now have a greater amount of water flowing through your lot.

Best of luck. Let us know how it turns out.

15

I echo Dinsdale’s posts 100%. I suppose “neighbor is being a dick” is totally subjective, but almost everything else in this thread is speculative nonsense.

16

Since you seem to keep getting these extreme gully washer rainstorms on a more regular basis now you might want to reconfigure your landscaping with a masonry retaining wall or some other solution to completely prevent movement of dirt onto her property. I’m betting these rainstorms will continue,