New build next door is flooding our yard - WWYD?

[Anonymous]

Agent here, and my husband is a MontCo developer. Mont Co shuts him down for a speck of mud on the road. I suggest you ask the builder first to fix this, and if not, go to the county. Give them a chance to remedy it first.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a small time flipper that got in way over his head. If this has been going on for over a year, then the guy probably has financial problems. I'm surprised you've been so patient so far. Talk to the county; he's probably unintentionally violating all kinds of rules. You may have to sue if you have damages, but if this guy is in financial trouble then you'll have a hard time collecting.

[Anonymous]

Call a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

We're in Fairfax County and they would most definitly have an issue with this. There are rules regarding effecting drainage on someone else's property.

[Anonymous]

Dunno how it's done in MD, but in FFX County you'd call inspection office first.
However, your case is not an automatic 100% slam dunk; there could be factors beyond site owner/developer control, and you could be bearing some of the mitigation costs. Just FYI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to be like the crazy Chevy Chase driveway lady, but I'm trying to figure out how to handle this situation. The house next door to ours was knocked down almost a year ago, and they are putting in a house that is literally 10x the size of the original. The original was on a slab, and of course they dug a proper (huge) foundation and basement for the new house.

We are at a significantly lower grade, and ever since the foundation went in next door, we have had a mud pit (and occasional small pond) in a corner of our yard. Nothing like this ever happened in the dozen years we've been here, and it's going to be crazy expensive to mitigate, because we're surrounded by other houses and we'd need pumps and god knows what else to get the water from this corner of the yard to the street. All the companies who have come out to give estimates for the work have said we should call the county, because it seemed obvious that it was an effect of the new build. We were uncomfortable with being the PITA neighbors even before anyone is living there.

But thanks to today's storm I got to see in real time how water is literally pouring out of the retaining wall between our houses and flooding our yard. It's still pouring out even long after the rain stopped, and there's literally a river running from the retaining wall to the back of our yard, with our kids' swing set submerged in at least 6 inches of water. I feel like this tips the balance to file a complaint, but I wondered what DCUM has to say? Anyone ever dealt with anything like this? Is there any possibility that the county (MoCo) will force the builders to divert the water away from our yard? The house is being built by a small-time guy who seems to flip them eventually, and he's only around sporadically.

It has been just such a nightmare living next door to this - workers outside our windows from 645am till after dark, a port-a-potty 3 feet from our driveway (that random people will stop and use), and so on. It's been going on almost a year, often on weekends as well as weekdays, and they're nowhere near finished. I know they have a right to do what they want on their own property but they don't have a right to ruin our backyard... do they?!

document all this with photos and videos including the water rushing onto your property. Make sure the pics/vids have digital date time stamps. Send it to the county. If you don't deal with this now, are you prepared to live with it and bear the cost yourself?

For example site plans include grading permits
http://classichomesofmaryland.com/find-a-lot/build-lot/

[Anonymous]

It is funny, but violating runoff/ drainage rules are one of the few things that will get a builder in trouble. A builder can cut all types of corners, but there are actual enforcement teeth for the rules about runoff.

[Anonymous]

You can ask the neighbor to split the cost of a drain with you. My parents were building when their neighbor contacts them about a similar issue. My parents paid to put a French drain in since they wanted to keep the peace.

[Anonymous]

Montgomery County requires a Sediment Control Permit Application and a Stormwater Concept Application. Look on the DPS website. This is a significant issue in MoCo. You absolutely have recourse.

[Anonymous]

I would go ahead and hire a landscape company that specializes in correcting drainage problems and just get this fixed. That's going to be less stressful than dealing with county bureaucrats or the builder. As another PP said, you might get some sort of grant for doing this work.

Best of luck. I know it's aggravating.

[Anonymous]

Grading plan was approved, you need to regrade your property

[Anonymous]

First, when the house is finished, the flow will be very different. The builder will put a drainage in place, sod or seed the area and most probably make infiltration pit or rain garden. In FFX county and if the area of the house+driveway is more than 18% from the lot size, builder have to make a pit/rain garden that will solve all the drainage issues.
So, when is done and if it is done properly according to the grading plan, all the water stays in his property.
At the meantime, builder have to put a sealed fence around the disturbed area. If the fence is not in place or not good enough to hold the water, call county inspector asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can ask the neighbor to split the cost of a drain with you. My parents were building when their neighbor contacts them about a similar issue. My parents paid to put a French drain in since they wanted to keep the peace.

Why would OP have to split the cost? MoCo will require the builder/owner to deal with runoff. When we (our neighbor actually) called about an issue up the hill from both of us the county was out pretty quickly. We had to pay a lot of money to shield our view of their monstrosity, but the county was all over the water problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grading plan was approved, you need to regrade your property

Just because it was approved doesn't mean the builder/developer followed it to t, had the silt fence installed and maintained properly, etc etc. Plus the plan itself could omit or miscalculated smthg. Or may be OP had issues all along and is just looking for an opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Or may be OP had issues all along and is just looking for an opportunity.

NO, this is really not it. We never had a problem, and because it started with a corner of the yard behind my kids' swing set, I hadn't realized how bad it was until they started fighting about who had to go into "the mud pit" to retrieve a lost ball. I've been hesitating because I felt like I couldn't "prove" it was the new build. I wasn't certain myself because of where the water was accumulating. But now I saw (and have video of) water gushing from the retaining wall and running straight across the yard to the corner/'mud pit.'

PP, I asked the drainage companies and our landscapers about regrading our lot (honestly it seemed like it could be less expensive than the massive pump station or rain gardens they were proposing) But they said it's not an option. Our lot is already graded on a very slight decline away from our house.

I recognize that we may still be SOL but I'm going to call. There's no fencing or anything of the kind around their lot and certainly no drainage mechanisms in place to funnel the water away from our property. The drainage companies we'd called said that sometimes that doesn't happen until they have actually finished the house, but given how long the construction is going on, it doesn't seem right that they can do absolutely nothing. Thanks for all the really good advice & expertise on this thread!