Case Studies
Flooding of House and Garden
A house developer constructed a SUDS (sustainable urban drainage system) pond at the corner of a site that it was developing for new housing. A homeowner shared a mutual boundary with the developer’s site adjacent to the SUDS pond. Three to four years after the SUDS pond had been constructed the homeowner claimed that the SUDS pond was responsible for water surcharging under their property and up through the front garden causing extensive damage.
Cadogans was asked to provide a report on whether the SUDS pond installed by the house developer had caused the flooding problems at homeowner’s house.
Work Carried Out By Cadogans
The issues were considered and a site visit was deemed to be necessary. A technical investigation was carried out based on the documents provided and information obtained during the site visit.
Cadogans concluded that the SUDS pond constructed on behalf of the developer was not the cause of the flooding at homeowner’s property. It was concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, it was likely that the flooding problem at the house was caused by a collapse or blockage of historic and previously unrecorded field drains passing under the property at a location down stream of the house. This would have resulted in the water in the field drain backing up into the house solum and rising up in the house front garden.
The case was settled out of court to the satisfaction of the Client.
