Surface Water Drainage law

[bailey10]

Hi Nigel,
We are in the long process of trying to complete some work not finished by our developer in order to get our building permits and full title deeds.
The District Office require a plan of the existing drainage on the street.
The current drain installed by the developer takes water from the street built on our plot and drains it onto the adjacent agricultural field.
Our surveyor has explained that Building laws do not allow water to drain onto neighbouring plots.
However my neighbours and I are co-owners of the agricultural land the water drains onto.

Can you advise us how to get more information on the law about drainage onto neighbouring land as if we own the land I believe we may be permitted to allow the water to drain onto it.
The District Office are impossible to contact for advice at the moment, they are in chaos.

[Nigel Howarth]

Hi bailey10

I'm sure your surveyor is correct in advising you that you're not permitted to drain your surface water onto neighbouring plots.

I suspect there's something in the building regulations/law to this effect.

I've found a document with a couple of useful references to surface water drainage at https://www.cyprus.gov.cy/moa/wdd/wdd.n ... penElement . There's a section on page 21 about the 'Sewage and Drainage Law 1970'.

I suggest you ask your surveyor to give you the reference to the actual law/regulation and you can find it on the cylaw.org website.

Regards,

[Pantheman]

Hi Nigel,
We are in the long process of trying to complete some work not finished by our developer in order to get our building permits and full title deeds.
The District Office require a plan of the existing drainage on the street.
The current drain installed by the developer takes water from the street built on our plot and drains it onto the adjacent agricultural field.
Our surveyor has explained that Building laws do not allow water to drain onto neighbouring plots.
However my neighbours and I are co-owners of the agricultural land the water drains onto.

Can you advise us how to get more information on the law about drainage onto neighbouring land as if we own the land I believe we may be permitted to allow the water to drain onto it.
The District Office are impossible to contact for advice at the moment, they are in chaos.

You may be the owners today, but what if you sell later?? The new owner to accept water from the neighbouring plot??

The best you can do, is to ask the planning dept, would it be acceptable to drill a bore hole (and how deep) to take the surface water. This is what they asked me to do outside my house.

[bailey10]

Thank you for your useful replies