The water would flow from Right to left. It is a Little uphill

We had a drainage easement we didn't pay enough attention to when building our first house. For whatever reason it failed to occur to me that the lot would need to be sloped towards the drainage easement which meant the backyard that appeared flat when we looked at the lot ended up slightly angled towards the easement after final grading was done. The difference was enough to make it so that we couldn't have a play set in our backyard or play any kind of game that required flat grass. It basically made our backyard unusable (with little kids) and is the main reason we decided to move.

This may or may not apply to your situation but I would definitely look into the grading.

If it's a buried pipe, it's probably not a problem. If it's an open ditch, it may prove to be a big issue. You need to observe water flow after a big deluge to determine if the pipe is sufficient to handle the volume of water.

So we just moved from a house with a close drainage issue - not an easement by government but by nature. We knew about it way before.

I am confused by your picture but maybe it was just opposite to mine. So does water collect in a large area and get funnelled to the pipe?

What we did was bury a large pipe about 10 feet off the high side and release it 30 feet off the low side. It was a 100 ft wide lot. It was us who put the pipe in. So we sloped the grade gradually down to where the pipe was put and then gradually up. We had a gradual side to side slope. We built a large patio over the pipe. The entire thing cost us few thousand dollars and was never an issue. We had some of the best drainage in the neighborhood. But we made the entrance and exit to the pipe invisible to us with landscaping.

I might see if you can extend the pipe closer to the right side property line. Then you can have an area with landscaping that makes the whole thing disappear.

I think what the common area is matters. Also your desire for backyard space. As I see it, I would be planning on living on the common area side for backyard. That is fine if the common area is something you don't mind being close to.

What does your neighbor's to the right back yard look like? 30 foot is wide but it might be a 5 foot wide stream. Our downside neighbor made it a feature and had bridges over it.

As an aside, see if you can widen the drive.

A month ago, we had a warm-up which caused the snow to melt quite rapidly. Added to that, we had a few days of rainy weather. Down the road from me, a drainage ditch failed to contain all of the water. This resulted in the house next to the ditch having to gut their finished basement.

You will not see the pipe it will be buried, so that shouldn't affect anything, the only thing is you cannot install anything permanently along the 15' easement boundary line. That being said, each easement has rules, see the do's and don't's for your easement. In most cases for storm drainage easements, they have Storm drain inlets every 100' give or take, which have to be accessible for service so the pathway to them cannot be blocked.

Good luck

The easement restricts your use of your lot. Flowing water, wet soils, and standing water have to be addressed and accommodated for in the site's design. The termination of the 18" concrete pipe could become a hazard if not designed properly, or at least an eyesore. Some may feel the site is undesirable, some may just see it as a design challenge.

I assume the lot was less expensive than the surrounding lots.

We had a drainage easement running down the side/border of our lot (.5 acre) at our last house ... wasn’t a problem at all, as it ran down to a big pasture behind us. Never had an issue with standing water. The builder installed a nice retaining wall along the easement bordering our back yard, and the way our lot was set up (and size) we didn’t miss using that part. Our house sat quite a bit above it.

Yours is much closer to your house, and bordering another lot, which would concern me. Without seeing the actual terrain, it’s hard to say, but definitely something I’d research more.

One bonus for us — we got a break on property taxes because of it. Since it was basically unusable, we didn’t have it included as taxable land.

Is it too late to buy other property?

Not sure where you live, but can't put a pool in with that running right through the middle of your back yard.

A while back I did property drainage analysis for a customer who was buying a house. He wanted to know if there were any drainage issues on the property since there was snow on the ground and you couldn't tell anything. When I read your post I decided to upload the video to Youtube to show you an example.

This was an animated display, a house image was taken from Google earth and its property contour was created and configured to show the customer the animation how the water is draining on the property in reality.

If you like to see your property drainage analysis, leave me please a message with your email and I will reply with the details. Here is an example how this was created.

There will be 6 other houses on the right side (they have a 20 feet drainage easement on their lots) the water will fennel into the concrete pipe, so enter on the right side. the builder says we could put a playground on it as the pipe would be underground

" . . . water will fennel into the . . . "

At least it should smell good.

",,,the builder says we could put a playground on it as the pipe would be underground..."

Ask your builder if he and his family would like to live there with a major drainage ditch from at least 6 other properties in the middle of the property?

Is it too late to back out of the deal? If so, why don't you ask the builder to extend the buried pipe to your property line of the right, and cover everything on your property? Let the neighboring property worry about ponding, poor drainage and the like... See if he can sell that property!

Such properties are often referred to as retainage basins and required by many jurisdictions.

It appears your builder doesn't want to lose any property to such a tried and true technique, and is passing along the flooding risk to purchasers who buy property unknowing of the risk or tried and true drainage and run off techniques.

Good luck with your project!

I would inquire about the storm event this was designed for by the civil engineers. Even if it was designed for 100 year storm event that would make me nervous since when this system can't handle the flow it will back up onto your property. You will also need to keep the inlet clear of debris and vegetation for it to function properly. Failure to do so may expose you to additional liability in the event this floods neighboring properties.