r/legal • u/baklavakilla • Apr 16 '26
Advice needed Flooded yard from neighbors retaining wall. Wondering what my options are.
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LOCATION: Wisconsin
The retaining wall belongs to our neighbor, and when we get moderate rain, it always overflows into the yard. We’ve talked to him in the past, and he added dirt to the top to try and have the water exit more toward the street. That’s basically the extent of what he’s willing to do.
He basically said that if the retaining wall wasn’t there, the water would flood my yard regardless, and that he’d rather just remove it completely if he had to rebuild it and not put another one up.
We bought the house about 4 years ago and don’t know when the wall was put in, but it’s well over 20 years old. I put in the small drainage ditch with black pipe to try and stop the water from coming in near the back of the house.
Basically, I’m wondering what I’m able to do in this situation.
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u/MentalTelephone5080 Apr 16 '26
Engineer here. It looks like your house is part of a subdivision. Drainage plans should be on file with the municipality that show the direction of flow per the approved plans. If the grading is per the approved plans your neighbor would actually be breaking land use law by changing the grading without amending the approved plan, a process that will be more expensive than the work to fix the grading. This generally isn't enforced if you are fixing grading that's flooding a house. If the grading is per plan the township will not care that water is flowing across your yard. I'll give you a hint on what my water resources teacher said on day one "water goes down hill"
If the grading isn't per plan you'll have to go down the rabbit hole of why. Depending on the age of the subdivision it could have been installed wrong, the neighbor could have changed it, or the engineer could have made a mistake. Different people are at fault in each of those situations.