Bought a new home this time last year in Bryan. The houses on my street were built using the fence lines as the drainage areas for each lot. Now that more houses have been built around me and grass has fully grown in, my back and side yards are a swamp after it rains. Is homebuilder or homeowner responsible for correcting the drainage issue. Thanks.

It should have been graded to drain properly, obviously, but I don't know the answer to your question.

Who is the builder? What subdivision?

I do not know the legal answer, but my gut tells me that you would be responsible for future improvements.

Now that being said, some builders are much more willing to keep their clients happy than others.

I wouldn't hesitate to call the builder and ask them to come and fix the drainage issue and see what they say.

You can dig a trench and put in French drains.

Around here, most builders have a one year warranty. If it is a new house and has never drained right, it is the builder's responsibility imho. Getting him the fix it is a whole other subject.

Builder is avoiding me, not answering calls, texts and emails. I will get it fixed and then go to small claims court to get reimbursed.

Builder came by last night and showed me why the new house next door is in violation of Texas Law. Have a call into City of Bryan to get it resolved. Feeling better about not having to pay to get it fixed.

How bout informing us of why they are in violation of Texas law?

Texas Water Code 11.086 entitled "OVERFLOW CAUSED BY DIVERSION OF WATER"

Short version is that a property owner -- in this case the builder/owner next to me -- cannot impound or alter drainage flow from his property to any surrounding properties. A landowner -- in this case me -- is entitled to rely upon continuation of the natural flow of "surface water". Before the house was built next door, I did not have drainage issues.

If I can't compel the builder/home owner to correct the problem I can take them to small claims court for relief.

Can you take a picture of the shared area? Again, around here, on houses I inspect int he typical neighborhood, two houses share the same side swale that is supposed to run the water off the property (usually to the street in front, but sometimes to an alley in the back.) With a couple exceptions (McKinney lets water drain across back yards down a whole street,) they are not ever supposed to run it across yards or back to a neighbor.

This is one of the most common problems I find because builders to do not get enough grade to the street in the swale or they grade it poorly and create high and low spots.

If it is a shared side yard situation, I would say your builder has as much responsibility as the neighbor. It is common for the drainage characteristics to change when the house is built next door. When it is two different builders it can be a mess.

Not sure you can win in court. In my neighborhood, the city had to spend millions to improve the drainage on the city golf course (that is in our neighborhood) because the builders/developers/someone graded most of the golf course lots to drain to the course instead of the street as called for in the city rain water management plans. So the golf course flooded all the time. I am thinking that if the case could have been won, the city would have sued the builders/developers/someone.

After spending a couple of days on this, talking to city, both builders and a lawyer, looks like I am going to have to take care of it on my dime. Nobody is accepting responsibility and will be hard to assign blame. Learned my lesson; don't buy a house in new neighborhood. Too many unknowns.

I didn't say it earlier but I could have told you the builder was just giving you lip service to get you off his back. No denying that the law is there but it would certainly take significant evidence to prove anything.

Who was your builder ?

Who have you been talking to at the builder? When we built our house I found that I rarely got anywhere with local reps for issues we had. When I fired off a certified letter to their corporate office with a cc to the local group, opinions on who is responsible started to change.

They aren't going to do anything without making you jump through hoops first but a lot of them do care about their reputation. Be a thorn in their side and they might take care of it to shut you up.