We bought a new house in RABBIT RUN subdivision in Broken Arrow, OK. There are major drainage issues here. Spectacular Homes is still building but instead of having a plan they wait till there is a problem. The lot next door is sold but they have not built a house yet. There are drainage holes for the surrounding houses all going into the lot next door. Our backyard has flooded twice now and water almost came into our house before they finally added a silt fence. Pic 1 and 2 are the lot next door with multiple drain pipes from surrounding yards. Pic 3 and 4 is out our back door when we flooded. Every time it rains hard we get very nervous. We have a very small yard but can’t get builder to come out and slope our side yard to street. Not sure what to do. We are still under warranty. Any suggestions? Just really don’t know what to do.

Hello, This sounds like a legal question. I am not a lawyer but I know a little about this because I was in a similar situation and I have worked in real estate a long time. I don't think you will be able to recover any damages regarding the damage to your landscape, here's why: 1. You purchased a property in which this problem already existed for 30 years. I am certain the damage did not just suddenly begin in the last 4 years you have lived there. A home inspector should have pointed this problem out to you and you could have considered costs needed to correct the problem which you should have negotiated in your purchase price. 2. I don't know, maybe you have some recourse with your home inspector for these costs if your home and property was inspected and you were not told. Your home inspection should be in writing. That said, it is 4 years later and this should have been addressed with the home inspector the first year you were there. I don't know what the statute of limitations are in your area for this. 3. Consider yourself fortunate that your neighbor corrected the problem on his side, at no expense to you. Where I live (not far from you) you are allowed to drain water right up to the property line. The grade of the neighbor's property is their responsibility, and if it is lower than your property, then that person would want to install a drain, ditch, or something similar to redirect water flow. All water flows from high to low (obviously) and the person with the lowest property, unfortunately, is going to pay for it. In general, that's usually negotiated in the sales price. Most of the time, neighbors are neighborly and correct the problem, like yours did, however they are not legally obligated to do so. It sounds like your neighbor did the right thing. I'm not sure if going to war with your neighbor will help you, especially when I think you stand a very good chance of loosing. If you win or loose, you still need to live next door to this neighbor. There is also the other neighbors to think about, I don't know what their relationships are like or how big your town is. It's just something practical for you to think about. Regarding your building a berm. This would depend on what your goal is and how much you want to spend. You might find it more cost effective to dig a ditch to the street, removing dirt rather than bringing more in to create the berm. That said, you could build a berm but you said you had 12' (12 foot) of water. I'm not sure if that's 12' deep or wide. It would need to be quite a large berm to redirect the water to the street depending on water volume. You should also think about what you would like to plant on the berm and if it could tolerate standing water if there is any. A berm could help provide you with privacy and could help keep out some noises if you have any. If noise is not an issue, you may be able to dig a good sized deep ditch, at a strong pitch, to the drainage ditch at the street. A berm could be pretty but you could also line the ditch with rocks which could be pretty as well. The rocks are a good option if you don't want to mow or weed whack in there. If you're willing to spend a little, you could do a combination of berms and ditches, or even french drains, with piping to the drainage ditch on the street. You have several options. Now, all of this said, you also must find out what your local building inspector says about all this because your code may call for certain setbacks from your neighbor's property for building a berm or the drainage ditch. In my area, we cannot change the original grade of the land in any way without submitting a plan first. You should know this first so as not to incur extra expenses for yourself. Regrading from the house down is a good idea and will improve on the health and longevity of your home. You should speak with your local building inspector about this and any permits you may need so as not to incur fines. Depending on how extensive your project is, the building inspector may want to see a drainage plan. Keep in mind that sometimes an improvement you may make on your property may change or affect the drainage or water flow to your neighbor's property. This can be a good or bad thing. It all depends on your situation. I hope this is helpful and I wish you the best of luck on your pool! G.

Interesting enough, all the anti-neighbor folks assume there must be some city ordinance to prevent offended neighbors from trimming limbs hanging over their property. There seldom is and the police have other matters with which to deal. The police don't handle that. At least not in towns in this area (my own, family's or where rental property is located). It's the Town Code Enforcer who handles it. That's what they get paid to do. My mother's town has strict tree codes (well, they're ultra strict about everything.) If a property owner's tree is overhanging a fence or property line, it can be trimmed back by neighbor providing it is: in danger of touching a building or wires, impeding growth of neighbor's own landscaping, or has potential to do some kind of structural damage on neighbor's premises (fence, buildings, etc.) However, neighbor cannot trim tree in such a way that it will bring on disease, poor growth habit or death. If in doubt, contact the code enforcer for an inspection. I'd suggest you look into that angle, chinchette. If you walk into your town hall, you should freely be given a copy of the code/ordinance that addresses your situation.

The comments here are very interesting, but there is not a lot of actual good advice. I built a concrete fence last year on the property line, so i actually do know the legal ins and outs about it. By-law officers showed up many times to check on things during construction. The first thing to note that is very important is that the neighbor building the fence, can apply to the city for a "right of access" permit at which point these is nothing that you can do to stop them accessing your property, depending on the city it usually costs about $250. these permits are very common and are normally issued for construction and maintenance purposes. however, that simply gives them the allowance to access a per-determined part your property and other specified things, like: to dig the trench. it does not allow ANY of the concrete to be on your property. the concrete can touch the property line, but cannot go over it. legally when completed they have to return your property to a similar or better state to how they found it, That's the Law. However, the real world is far more messy. There are a few things to consider here, ----------------------------------- The first to consider is the concrete footers, they are generally 5 feet below ground (where it freezes) and are needed to stabilize the concrete above them, they usually stick out 6 inches on both sides Now your can definitely stop them from putting any footers onto your side. BUT not having footers on your side can over time destabilize the wall, and make it move / lean / fall over / etc.. in the direction of the missing footer. remember ground is not rock, and it moves and shifts with time. So even knowing that you can stop the footer from being on your side of the property line, there is a very big question about what to do 5 years later when it starts shifting / leaning much more into your property... Personally i recommend, Negotiate! there are things that you can get out of this. ------------------------------------ Next is Fit and Finnish, the concrete that sticks out of the ground should be rendered to make it look nice. this will cost money, and so long as your neighbor doesn't do it on his side in the first month of two, he legally doesn't have to do it to your side, at all. this is considered the equivalent to him painting his side of the fence. ------------------------------------ Next is drainage, any concrete structure should be surrounded by a drainage pipe to help move water around the structure and stop water pressure underground from pushing on the structure causing it to move / fail. Again this will cost money, and legally does NOT have to be done. ------------------------------------ In Conclusion : obviously your neighbor can simply use the right of access permit like a big club to get what he wants. but at the end of the day, your neighbor will want you to be happy with the end results to avoid future problems. so Negotiate! let him build his concrete foundation, AND have the footers on your side underground. BUT mandate that he has to have your side nicely rendered, and place a drainage pipe on your side to make sure water will properly drain around this structure. ALSO mandate that you get to pick the look of the fence to sit above this concrete foundation. ----------------------------------- The last thing anyone want to to have to fight about how to fix anything in 5 to 10 years Here is a picture of my steal reinforced concrete fence. (it looks the same on all sides) (capping stones are waiting to go on the top, Covid-19 has delayed getting them on for months.)