Neighbour does not repair his blocked gutter which caused foundation issue, how to deal with him ?

Hi, PCers, Anyone has any experience with this ?

1 neighbours, an elderly couple, does not want to repair his leaking and blocked gutter and raise up his concrete surface edge. When it rains, I have several tons of water poured aournd my basement because the basement sump pit pump activated up to 10 or 15 times during heavy rain. I have talked with them nicely but it looked nothing had happened for a month. I then sent them a friendly reminder and again nothing has happened since.

I went to council for somthing else and mentioned this to the council and the council said they could help in this matter. I told the council to wait for a while and let the neighbour to act themselves since I wanted to maintain a resonable good relationship with them.

I also called building insurance company and they said they could also help.

Which approach is more effective ? council or building insurance company ?
Thanks in advance....

 

If something has happened to your property, you should claim on your insurance. Its up to the insurance company if they want to chase other people for reimbursement

 

Council can enforce your neighbors to fix the issue. Your insurer can do nothing but write a letter.
Harass council and your neighbour will get a friendly "you have XX days to fix" if it's a legitimate issue.

 

What would happend if they still do not fix the issue in XX days ?

 

They get fined repeatedly and then taken to court depending on the council.
Ask council to investigate issue and if it's legitimate, good council officers will ask the owners to fix it verbally. If they fix it in a reasonable time frame, problem solved.
If they refuse they can be issued with a work order under the appropriate local government act to fix it.
If council doesn't think it's a problem covered by legislation, it's between you and the neighbors to argue about.

 

Agree that council is the way to go unless you hire a professional to act on your behalf.

 

Tribunal or council that's the only way

 

Would it be an option to go and repair yourself? I know this sounds kind of bizarre but I have gutter "issues" and love getting up there with my proper gutter gloves and sorting out that stuff!!!!! I had spoken to my neighbour a couple of weeks ago about some overhanging trees into the gutters of my beloved granny flat. They are away this weekend gone so I chopped those buggers off and cleared those gutters! Have to say I was shocked at the amount of blockage in a very short time. Sure enough, the morning after, the heavens opened and the downpipes poured!
I work with very elderly people and very often despite having the Bucks they won't spend it, even worse they may try to get up here themselves. Of course if the house was here I would be up hat ladder myself!

 

Incorrect. Councils are not able to enforce repairs.

In Nsw best to seek mediation via dept of fair trading. Costs approx $170 . Any agreements reached are binding. Next stage is a small claims - legal. Works better if u r seen to be acting in good faith by going via mediation.

 

They can tell you to resolve a problem that is causing damage to a neighboring property - they just cannot tell you "how".

As an owner, they could choose to fix the gutter or they could choose to build a large moat around their property and hire 24hr flood watching guards dressed as French maids while singing Songs about dancing in the rain. The choice is up to the owner as long as it stops the problem.

So in effect, yes, they can tell you to repair the problem. No, they cannot force you to fix the damage to a neighbors property, that is an entirely different legal matter.