Neighbours blocked drains flooding our land- rural

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Can you help me with appropriate legislation to show neighbour pls to prove to him his position is wrong?

We have an ongoing issue and he insists its our responsibility- not his, so continues to flood our land.
We don't want to go legal as we want to stay on good terms-he's pig headed, but if i can print and furnish him with proof he's being a jackass, he will back down I hope. i have already told him i am looking forward to the day when he says the words "You were right, and i was wrong!"
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We live in the country in Wales
His farmland has a pond (put in at least 80 yrs ago) that receives rainwater drainage off his land and would overflow in winter but for the fact that it also has drains out of it (no one knew where any of these drains were or that they existed) which cross his driveway, runs along the edge of our land, and across our field and discharges god knows where? Probably over the road onto the lower field somewhere?
ALL THE LAND used to belong to one landowner once, and we bought our property off his mother, who sold him a parcel of her land as his farm.

So his driveway would get washed away into almighty pot holes and was hard to drive up, then he put his property on the market, so got the driveway turned over and rerolled and compressed so it looked better and then was annoyed because water kept coming up out of it and running down ruining it again, so while we were away last year, he dug around on our land and discovered there was a sump filled in with dirt with grass growing over it, so dug it all out, which made the sump fill up with water and relieved the water coming up out of his drive.

Then he dug a trench through our yew hedge and in 3 other spots on our property to channel any of the overflowing water across our land instead of his.
So it flooded our land, a few inches deep in our woodlands, then flowed like a white water river over our vegetables garden washing it all away, and then across our septic soaraway in the field and there was so much water all winter our grass rotted!
So we spoke to him and said (nicely) that that is not an acceptable solution, and if his drains are no longer working, he needs to reroute them when he did his trench for the septic and discharge it into the stream on his land instead, as he has no idea where the drainage from his pond goes, in what direction or where the heck its blocked (he's tried jetting it).
But I spoke to him again today as its been almost a year this is going on now and he's insistent that as the blocked drain is on our land, it's our responsibility.
I explained to him that that is not the way the law works and just because his drains draining his lake run across our land at one point, that does not make the water overflow problem ours.
But he insists it does and feels aggrieved that "we" are "allowing his water to wreck his drive because we have not maintained "our" drains!"
There's no point trying to talk to him further as he won't even read the legislation about drainage serving ones property running across someone else land, and we don't want to have a falling out with him, or go legal, but the flooding cannot happen again this winter.

These drains drain water from his land. not ours, so apart from the fact they run under our field,they have nothing to do with us, nor the maintenance of them, but he won't hear of it and insists that as soon as they cross onto our land, they become ours to look after, which is not correct, so i need to find something specific I can print out and give to him so he can see for himself he's talking *******s and that it is indeed his responsibility.

The solicitor told us just to chuck down sandbags to stop his water flooding our land, but that will only make him ropable as he thinks already this issue is due to US not maintaining these drains which aren't ours, but he believes are!
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It's an environmental offence to discharge one's drainage water onto someone else's property.
Normally a simple call to your local environmental department would suffice.
But this looks like a more protracted problem, and I suspect you need to start with a qualified surveyors report.
I don't know what sort of qualification would be required. Maybe one of the drainage chaps on here might see your request and respond accordingly.
That report alone might be sufficient to persuade your neighbour to do something.
 
It's an environmental offence to discharge one's drainage water onto someone else's property.

I don't think that is strictly true, especially in regards to land drainage. Water tends to flow downhill so unless someone invents an anti-gravity drainage system it will have to be resolved by rectifying the existing defective land drains. If the existing land drains on the OP's property have become blocked they can hardly complain if surface water from the uphill property starts to discharge across their land. Likewise if there are any properties downhill from them where the water continues it's journey, it is more of a shared responsibility.

It would be a different matter if the uphill landowner was undertaking work that changed the surface water runoff or was putting in new land drains for the first time. Then the adjoining owner cannot deliberately channel surface water on to the adjoining property. But the fact that it involves existing land drains that are now defunct makes it more of a civil legal matter.
 
Be aware,by the way, that from the sound of it yours and your neighbours' septic tanks don't comply with the 2020 law change. If you get EH involved they'll probably point that out and require an upgrade pdq.
Your drainage issue is going to be One Of Those Things- it was out of order for him to trespass on your land and dig about but you weren't there so unlikely to get any satisfaction that way.
Your best bet (from the sound of it you have a convenient river) is probably to dig a trench and chuck a big drain in to drain your property. If you can arrange a berm on your boundary so any surface water hitting his land stays on his land that might be a bonus.
 
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If you share a soak away with someone it should be on the deeds as a covenant. If it's not then he has no rights to demand anything about it and no right to use it.
 
...they have nothing to do with us, nor the maintenance of them, but he won't hear of it and insists that as soon as they cross onto our land, they become ours to look after, which is not correct,
You're wrong on that, they are yours. You can do whatever you like with them including digging them up or pouring concrete down them.

The drains on your land are yours, the water he's pouring down it isn't. Also tell him that if he wants to sell he really doesn't want his solicitors to have to admit that he's in a legal dispute with his neighbour. He has more to lose here than you do.
 
I don't think that is strictly true, especially in regards to land drainage. Water tends to flow downhill so unless someone invents an anti-gravity drainage system it will have to be resolved by rectifying the existing defective land drains. If the existing land drains on the OP's property have become blocked they can hardly complain if surface water from the uphill property starts to discharge across their land. Likewise if there are any properties downhill from them where the water continues it's journey, it is more of a shared responsibility.

It would be a different matter if the uphill landowner was undertaking work that changed the surface water runoff or was putting in new land drains for the first time. Then the adjoining owner cannot deliberately channel surface water on to the adjoining property. But the fact that it involves existing land drains that are now defunct makes it more of a civil legal matter.

Actually, the way our Georgian property was built 200 yrs ago, is that even though we are on a downhill slope to a degree, the whole property is bordered on the back by a wooded high mound, which was probably form the excavations for this house, so any amount of water can run down hill and NEVER come onto our property, unless it was over 10 metres high tidal wave!

The property was all one farm once and his mum owned this house.
He bought the acres around it, the farm, which includes the pond/reservoir which the drains come from.

The drains do not serve our land at all, just run under them.
If they were removed ,it would make no difference to us, as we don't have a water issue!
The ONLY reason that we now do, is that water, artificially routed thru drains which serve his property are not functional, so he has dug a trench on our side of the drive with embankments either side, and dug a trench through our hedge to channel the water over our land.
Before then, it used to just run down his driveway for years and years.
 
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You're wrong on that, they are yours. You can do whatever you like with them including digging them up or pouring concrete down them.

The drains on your land are yours, the water he's pouring down it isn't. Also tell him that if he wants to sell he really doesn't want his solicitors to have to admit that he's in a legal dispute with his neighbour. He has more to lose here than you do.

His drains are not ours.
They don't serve us at all, they just cut across our field as closed drains, to take the water away somewhere else under the road- most likely to the other famers fields below that have historically had drainage ditches, but are now all filled in, so even if there was no blockage somewhere under our flied and it was dislodged, the water would still have no where to go.
He has an historical right to continue draining his water across our land through drains, because its been like that for many years, however that just makes us subservient land to his dominant right, it doesn't make them our drains.
We don't need drains.
 
If you share a soak away with someone it should be on the deeds as a covenant. If it's not then he has no rights to demand anything about it and no right to use it.

We don't share a soakaway- the treatment plant he's just put in is way over the other side no where near us, however, the ditch he had to dig to get the pipes there to discharge from the farm building he's renovating were but a mere 10 metres from his pond, so he could have just solved the problem easily and cheaply at that point but digging an extra 10 or so metres and laying a drain in the same trench at the same time, avoiding all this chaos!
Even if he does dig all across our field and replace the broken/blocked pipes, he'll most likely find it still doesnt work, as he doesnt know where it goes from there and the farmer across the road has completely ploughed over his field and filled in any drainage ditches anyway.
 
so while we were away last year, he dug around on our land and discovered there was a sump filled in with dirt with grass growing over it, so dug it all out, which made the sump fill up with water and relieved the water coming up out of his drive

Did you give him permission to dig around on your land ? If not then he committed trespass and while trespassing carried out work on the drainage on your land.

This could be interpreted as him taking on the responsibility for the drainage of his water across ( under ) your land.
 
Be aware,by the way, that from the sound of it yours and your neighbours' septic tanks don't comply with the 2020 law change. If you get EH involved they'll probably point that out and require an upgrade pdq.
Your drainage issue is going to be One Of Those Things- it was out of order for him to trespass on your land and dig about but you weren't there so unlikely to get any satisfaction that way.
Your best bet (from the sound of it you have a convenient river) is probably to dig a trench and chuck a big drain in to drain your property. If you can arrange a berm on your boundary so any surface water hitting his land stays on his land that might be a bonus.

He has just put his treatment plant in and had it signed off by regs.

Ours was put in and signed off by regs in 2014 so all legal. The stream he discharges into for that, is over the other side of his property, not in reach for us to go anywhere near.
 
Did you give him permission to dig around on your land ? If not then he committed trespass and while trespassing carried out work on the drainage on your land.

This could be interpreted as him taking on the responsibility for the drainage of his water across ( under ) your land.

No he did it while we were away!
He still hasn't filled in the trench he dug into the entrance to our field from 9 mths ago, which means we can't get a tractor in to mow it!
He also paid a drainage company to come out and try jetting it without telling us, but they can't rectify it as they need to do it from the bottom up and no one knows where that may be for them to try.
He was going to smash the pipe open with a digger tomorrow at the entrance to our field to let it just run out across the surface of the field down lower.
 
Rural land drainage is not the same as urban drainage.

I don't think you're going to get the correct answers off this forum. You need a land agent or similar.
 
His drains are not ours.
They don't serve us at all, they just cut across our field as closed drains, to take the water away somewhere else under the road- most likely to the other famers fields below that have historically had drainage ditches, but are now all filled in, so even if there was no blockage somewhere under our flied and it was dislodged, the water would still have no where to go.
He has an historical right to continue draining his water across our land through drains, because its been like that for many years, however that just makes us subservient land to his dominant right, it doesn't make them our drains.
We don't need drains.
Once they go on your land, they are yours. He doesn't own the pipes. So you can rip them up.
 
Just to update you, after speaking with the solicitor who did our conveyancing for the purchase a while back, so knows the layouts and situation with this land. I contacted the buyer of our neighbours land (another local farmer) to speak to him about it. I had agreed with my neighbour that i would do this, as we weren't getting anywhere.
He knows some of what i am talking about, as he advised him on how to resurface the driveway and was there when the neighbour tried to unblock the pipes with a jetter and he agrees it is not our responsibilty to sort the drainage from his pond.
He said leave it with him and he will speak to the vendor about rectifying it before his sale goes thru, as it is the vendors responsibility (and everyone knows that) and we'll have it fixed before the wet season.
 

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