Landlord next door says my roof causes his roof damage

[Nicole A.]

Recently, the owner/landlord of the duplex next to mine reached out to me. He informed me that he recently did repairs to his roof and that apparently two roofers said that the pitch of my roof is channeling a large amount of rain water onto his roof.

Most of the roofs on these buildings are flat, including his. At some point in time before I purchased my property, the roof was modified to be pitched. Both my building and the one next to it had the same previous owner.

I've included the pictures he sent, which is just a view from the ground. I was expecting/hoping for photos of the actual apparent problem from the roof.

I don't know much about roofs, but even if they are flat, shouldn't they be graded to send water away so it doesn't pool? Also, it seems that there is a gutter at the end of the pitch, which would send water away.

Am I responsible for this? He hasn't directly said what he wants yet, but I think it's a bit unreasonable if he is asking me to change my roof back to flat. He didn't seem to notice any of this a year ago when he purchased.

[Jon Holdman]

Looks to me like your roof has been extended across the property line to dump water onto his roof.  I suspect he could do a survey to determine exactly where the property line is and take a chainsaw and cut off the part of your roof that crosses the line.  And there would be nothing you could do.  If I were you I would be very conciliatory in working with this guy.  Just based on these pictures he has a very legitimate complaint and you have little ground to stand on.

And, yes, all the extra water from your roof, which from your pictures appears to be getting directed onto his roof could cause problems for his entire roof.  That extra water load wouldn't have been accounting for in designing his roof, so may not be getting carried off effectively.

Now, should he have sorted this out before buying?  Perhaps.  But it would just have been the former owner in his shoes coming after you.

Have you looked through your deeds and paperwork to see if there was some sort of easement for the encroachment?  If, as you think, the buildings were originally built this way perhaps something was put in place to allow your roof to encroach on his property and for the water to be diverted onto his roof.  If so, you might have an out and it would be his problem to fix his roof to accommodate your water. 

But if your roof was modified at some point to extend onto his property and dump water onto his roof and it was done without that owners knowledge and written permission I think you may have a problem.