slackmaster
New Member
We live in Madison County, Illinois and recently our neighbor had a sewer pipe rupture. Way back when, before either of us lived in our respective houses, the lot was subdivided into four separate lots. Our house, being on one of the subdivided lots, had her sewer line running through our backyard to connect to the easement. When the plumbers came out to replace her sewer line, the plumbers did inform us that they would have to do some digging in our yard, but it would be minimal and we gave them permission to gain access to our yard. Long story short, the damage wasn't minimal; they removed a tree, as well as removed our fence in order to get machinery into the yard. The plumbers replaced the fence and posts by simply placing the formally concreted posts into the existing holes with loose dirt, left the yard with a mound of dirt with no grass, and basically demolished ¼ of our backyard.
We have since replaced the tree at a cost of $100 and got an estimate for re-grading and re-seeding the yard. The estimate totals $400 and that does not include the concrete to re-seat the sagging fence posts.
The city contends that the portion of our yard is not part of the city's easement and is OUR property.
The question is who pays for the damage?
1) Us since we gave the plumbers permission to work on her sewer line that ran through our yard
2) The neighbor since it was part of her housing infrastructure that ran through our property
We have talked to the neighbor about "doing the right thing" and at least split the difference in the price of fixing our yard. Her response was that she got "raped" in the price of fixing her sewer line by the plumbers, has no money, as well as she is not responsible for the damage in our property since it was OUR property. No remorse what so ever and has never apologized for the damage that her sewer predicament has caused our yard. We are good neighbors and she has recently moved in, but by the lack of remorse or at least an offer of an apology has caused me to re-think about the situation and have the expenses for repair come out of her pocket not mine.
What should we do and how to we peruse action?
Thanks all
We have since replaced the tree at a cost of $100 and got an estimate for re-grading and re-seeding the yard. The estimate totals $400 and that does not include the concrete to re-seat the sagging fence posts.
The city contends that the portion of our yard is not part of the city's easement and is OUR property.
The question is who pays for the damage?
1) Us since we gave the plumbers permission to work on her sewer line that ran through our yard
2) The neighbor since it was part of her housing infrastructure that ran through our property
We have talked to the neighbor about "doing the right thing" and at least split the difference in the price of fixing our yard. Her response was that she got "raped" in the price of fixing her sewer line by the plumbers, has no money, as well as she is not responsible for the damage in our property since it was OUR property. No remorse what so ever and has never apologized for the damage that her sewer predicament has caused our yard. We are good neighbors and she has recently moved in, but by the lack of remorse or at least an offer of an apology has caused me to re-think about the situation and have the expenses for repair come out of her pocket not mine.
What should we do and how to we peruse action?
Thanks all
