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Northern Indiana | We’ve got a few private ditches here in Indiana on some farms. For the most part we’re the only beneficiary of the ditch so we can do as we please. We’ve been working on taking some of them out of service, one in particular that has about 8 or 10 houses on it, we own the ditch and the top of the bank on the housing side but not wide enough to maintain it and the yard runoff is destroying us in water tests that our county does. So it has to go as far as we’re concerned. But there’s a caveat to private ditches at least here. We own it, we’re responsible to maintain it, etc but for the adjoining parcels (all happen to be houses) it is considered a mutual drain meaning we can’t just get rid of it. We’ll have to make provisions for their water to still drain according to the county surveyor. All that to say, my guess is you can’t force the neighbor to pay but I would bet you have rights to a working drain and if you’re willing to foot the bill some agency will give you permission even if the owner doesn’t want you to | |
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Blocked ditch absentee landowner Minnesota?
