I have no experience dealing with what you're going through. But I would think that if the drainage problem was bad enough to kill vegetation it should be looked at my the city. Did you plant the trees? If they were already there and are now dying then it sounds like the problem is a new one and not necessarily something that you would be responsible for. Proper drainage is essential. How to solve it is beyond me but I would tackle it before I planted anything else.

Standing water can result from impermeable soil or your landscape position. If you have shrink-swell clay in your yard water will not move downward and drain away from your house. If it's your landscape position, you may have to install drain pipe to lower your water table or try crowning your yard.

What did the companies propose to fix your problem? Do you know what the soils are like? What type of trees are dying? Can you post a picture?

I could post pictures but there are no leaves to show the slow death. They are dying from the top down. I believe I have a mix of beech and oak. They are older approx 40' tall. We cut down around 13 smaller trees and many were completely rotted in the inside.

I called the county extension who just blames the builder. It may very well be the building of housing, but this problem is limited to two houses in my neighborhood and we both have water issues. I bought the house in October and it is 5 years old.

My soil is clay. There are two surface drains in the back. The problem is I am getting lots of water from my next door neighbor and the guy above me. My surface drains just can't handle the subsurface saturation. You literally hit water at approx 8" down.

Can you tell me how to post a picture? I have the design from the first company of what they would recommend. It is an elaborate french drain around the yard. They think it will be "mowable" within 3 days.

How much land is being impacted by the excess of water? Is there room for a small retention pond? Regardless the fix, if those 40' trees are in the catch basin area of your yard and being flooded by runoff from other yards, they're going to die. I'd have them taken out and replaced with varieties that thrive on raingarden conditions, like chestnut oak, hickory, willow,siberian elm(yuck),swamp maple.
Without knowing the size of your yard and if it backs to another persons yard it's hard to make recommendations.

I hope I paste this in correctly. Here is the plan for my yard. I don't know much about drainage solutions. It seems pretty thorough to me.

http://photos.gardenweb.com/garden/galleries/2009/02/yard_drainage_proposal.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Drainage Plan

I'm not surprised your neighbors yard is a problem source of water given his drainage pipes end at the inside of your rear fence. That is wrong. His piping shouldn't enter your yard.
It might be that yours was one of the last homes built on a lot with water drainage issues aggrevated by drainage off lots with higher elevations.
Unless your proposal shows where the excess water is to go (which it doesn't) other than catch basins, I'd take the effected trees out and bring in more soil to build up the rear corners so you can plant trees that are more water tolerant. You have a unique situation of excess water that can be used to your benefit when others are suffering during drought. You have to get your plantings up higher and that means bringing in a lot more dirt, planning retention walls and selecting appropriate plant materials.

First thing I'd do, after cutting down the big 40 footers and grinding the stumps is to get that neighbors drainage piping out of your yard.
Get a good blend of top and subsurface soil for your fill. Subsurface fill soil is low oxygen/high mineral/compacted junk that needs blending with an adequate amount of topsoil and some good old red clay so your plantings can grow and thrive.

Assuming the ground surface outside or beyond your yard slopes generally downward on the page view, and additionally that there is lower ground off to the left to which to drain, the system looks pretty good. If it still is a bit too wet, later adding a few parallel french drains in the yard might help (running up/down on the page view). Or you instead could pay a little more now and have every pipe that shows blue now instead be more french drain crossing the yard.

Have you talked with your neighbor about his pipe draining water onto your lot?
I do not know how it is in NC, but in SC, DHEC will get involved if a neighbor redirects or regrades so that water runs onto a neighbor's land.

Thanks for all of the opinions. The guy behind me who is "dumping" the water is a really nice guy. He wants to work with us to fix and ultimately will probably also go underground into my pipes. The meanie next door from me is why his stuff dumps in my yard. He took it further down the hill on his property line and she freaked out when her wood chips washed off.

The water problems are from failure of planning by the developments. My house is the last one in the development so the two builders probably didn't care about what happened between the two. There needs to be some type of drainage path between all of our yards.

I hope that with the new drainage some of the large trees make it. I moved from NJ and love Swamp Maples. I don't see too many of them here and will be planting a few as soon as I know the water issues are more in control.

Check with an arborist and see if the appearance of the large trees that you noted is an indicator of a condition that can be overcome by changing the drainage.
My biggest concern is that so much of what you propose (french drains) will be over the root zones of these bigger trees.

Where do (will) your pipes drain to? The water has to go somewhere.

Mocharoman, I had a very similar situation which was solved by a major landscape/drainage do-over. Yes, we can both blame the developers - they sell the houses then get outta' Dodge before the dust settles! Working w/neighbors is good, but some are not willing so then self-preservation takes over.

My yard is half way down a gradual slope, complicated by a farm 'above' me also dumping water. I used The Natural Accent landscapers and we've got this totally under control. From a bowl of butterscotch pudding with a river running thru it, they created a wonderful, well drained usable plant/tree sanctuary.

James can be reached at 919 244-3570. They really know their stuff ..... tell James that Ellen sent you! And let me know how you make out!

Boy, I can sympathize with you! We are the 5th house at the bottom of a sloped street and get everyone's water. Three years ago they built a large house behind us and the water coming from that house added enough to cause us problems. It is like a river coming toward our house when it rains! We hired a landscape company that "specializes" in drainage problems. Yes, we had to put an elaborate maze of 3 french drains with 4 floor (grass-level) drains in the side and back yard to carry away the water. They had to tunnel the master drain under the driveway, and a side walk and driveway were involved. The water shoots out of 2 large pop up heads when it rains, but it is carried away. We just need to make sure the drains are not clogged at grass level by sticks or mulch. It does work. Unfortunately, for us, it is the price we pay for being at the bottom of a hill. It was several thousand dollars. We really had no option as in the midst of it all there are septic lines. Good luck.

Zigzag, thanks for the referral. I am having James come out next week. I also got the master horticulturist for my county to set up an appt in two weeks. She is pushing a rain garden. I think I am beyond rain gardens, but will keep an open mind. She also gave me the name of a certification I should ask for when dealing with landscaping companies. This is a huge learning experience!

Great, Mocharoman, I hope they'll be able to do their magic on your yard too. Keep me posted, please.