Neighbor Wants Me To Help Pay For Retaining Wall

[dan76eb]

I am in California. Here is some background on my situation. My home is 15 years old and I purchased it from the original owner 6 years ago. When my home was built, like many in the area, it sits about 2 to 3 feet higher than my neighbor. There is a fence that runs down the property line and a gentle slope on his side until it becomes level to where his house sits.

The first 2 to 3 years my house was here, there was just an empty lot next to my house while the builder built out the rest of the neighborhood. When my next door neighbor purchased this lot and chose his house, he told the builder he wanted his house to sit 2 feet further away from the fence between him and me, so he could have enough room to park his boat on the side of his home. Well the builder forgot about this and the mistake wasn’t found until the sewer, gas, water and cement slab were already in, so there was no way they were going to rip all that up and move it over 2 feet. The solution from the builder was to come in with a dozer and cut right down the property line to get rid of that slope and put up a wooden retaining wall and build a new fence on top of that wall. By eliminating that slope my neighbor would gain his 2 feet back and have his RV access.

Well after a big storm a couple weeks ago the retaining wall gave out in one spot and he approached me about replacing the whole wall along with putting up a new fence. I have no problem about going 50/50 on a new fence, but I feel I have no responsibility for the cost of a new retaining wall since it was originally put there by a mistake on the builder’s part in order for my neighbor to have his RV access.

Am I in the right to refuse to not help him out financially put up a new wall for his RV access or since the builder came in and put it right down the property line that made me responsible for half the upkeep. I just feel that since my house was here a couple years prior to his and that wall was not there in the original grade for erosion control or water run off, but installed at a later date just for RV access that its not my responsibility to help him replace it.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks

[aaron]

Where exactly does the retaining wall lie, in relation to the boundary line? (e.g., on your neighbor's side? Is it centered on the property line?)

It is my impression from the following statute that you do not have responsibility for the retaining wall, although you should check local ordinances to see if they affect your rights.

Each coterminous owner is entitled to the lateral and subjacent support which his land receives from the adjoining land, subject to the right of the owner of the adjoining land to make proper and usual excavations on the same for purposes of construction or improvement, under the following conditions:

1. Any owner of land or his lessee intending to make or to permit an excavation shall give reasonable notice to the owner or owners of adjoining lands and of buildings or other structures, stating the depth to which such excavation is intended to be made, and when the excavating will begin.

2. In making any excavation, ordinary care and skill shall be used, and reasonable precautions taken to sustain the adjoining land as such, without regard to any building or other structure which may be thereon, and there shall be no liability for damage done to any such building or other structure by reason of the excavation, except as otherwise provided or allowed by law.

3. If at any time it appears that the excavation is to be of a greater depth than are the walls or foundations of any adjoining building or other structure, and is to be so close as to endanger the building or other structure in any way, then the owner of the building or other structure must be allowed at least 30 days, if he so desires, in which to take measures to protect the same from any damage, or in which to extend the foundations thereof, and he must be given for the same purposes reasonable license to enter on the land on which the excavation is to be or is being made.

4. If the excavation is intended to be or is deeper than the standard depth of foundations, which depth is defined to be a depth of nine feet below the adjacent curb level, at the point where the joint property line intersects the curb and if on the land of the coterminous owner there is any building or other structure the wall or foundation of which goes to standard depth or deeper then the owner of the land on which the excavation is being made shall, if given the necessary license to enter on the adjoining land, protect the said adjoining land and any such building or other structure thereon without cost to the owner thereof, from any damage by reason of the excavation, and shall be liable to the owner of such property for any such damage, excepting only for minor settlement cracks in buildings or other structures.

You do have responsibility for a shared boundary fence.

Coterminous owners are mutually bound equally to maintain:

1. The boundaries and monuments between them;

2. The fences between them, unless one of them chooses to let his land lie without fencing; in which case, if he afterwards incloses it, he must refund to the other a just proportion of the value, at that time, of any division fence made by the latter.