What are my rights if our neighbor made a ditch on our land to drain his water from his driveway prior to us purchasing our land?
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What are my rights if our neighbor made a ditch on our land to drain his water from his driveway prior to us purchasing our land?
In the past month, I hired a blacktop company to blacktop the land between my driveway and the neighbor’s driveway. The blacktop company matched our driveways and now we have a “pond” when it rains (hard) on the neighbor’s driveway and a little on our new blacktop. The neighbor contacted the blacktop company to see “what they were going to do about it” and never contacted me. The water doesn’t reach their garage or house, the neighbor was out taking pictures today of the “pond”. Am I in the wrong? Their water has been running on us for years, I needed an area for my son to park his truck off the street.
Asked on July 9, 2015 under Real Estate Law, Pennsylvania
Answers:
M.T.G., Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 8 years ago | Contributor
If this is your property and after you nought it you decided to close up the ditch then you have every right to close it up. There is something called "adverse possession" that your neighbor may claim but if it gets to that you will need an attorney. His drainage problems have to be solved by dealing with his own land, not yours. Good luck.
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