Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New Jersey
Easement
A previous owner of my propery in 1940's put in a drainage pipe across his property to drain it. The drainage pipe continues to the road and the borough put in a pipe across the road that connects into our pipe.The people on the other side of the road continued with their own pipe or some people just let the water flow in a open stream until it enters the borough storm system about 1/2 mile down stream. The owners of the lot behind my propery also connected into the pipe that crosses my property. In 1997, the lot behind ours was sold and a large commercial building was built on the property. They wanted to put all their drainage water into the pipe ;we tried to stop them since the pipe was not large enough to handle a large amount of water. The borough said we had to let me connect into our pipe. Now, there appears to be a blockage in the pipe. There are no easements for the pipe. The owners of the building are sueing us and want us to fix the blockage. It is not clear that the blockage is on our property and since the pipe was put in for private use and is not part of the storm drainage system of the borough are we responsible for fixing the pipe? Do we have to give the borough aneasement for the pipe now?Who fixes it?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Easement
Your question poses an interesting issue. Do you have an attorney representing you in the lawsuit? Have you checked with your homeowner's insurance carrier and/or your title insurance carrier to see if they'll provide coverage and a defense attorney? If you're looking for local counsel, I would be happy to discuss the matter with you. Good luck!
Drew Hurley
Re: Easement
This case could go either way and the issues are important to you and to anyone who succeeds to your interest in the land. In retrospect, it is too bad that you did not bring the issue to a head in 1997.
Ordinarily, absent some special duty that you might have not mentioned, you do not have the responsiblility to clear the blockage unless you put it there intentionally. There may be an easement even thought there is nothing of record; the law sometimes implies an easement.
The whole situation leads me to believe that there is something else about the borough's rights that you are not including in your description. Otherwise, the borough would not have the right to require you to service an upstream property. Might it be that the whole system was once part of an open stream system?
If you would like to give me some more information and perhaps get a better resolution of your question, call me using the contact information linked to this reply.
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
