ᐅ Excavation in Front of Retaining Wall / Support Angle

Hello everyone, I have a question about garden landscaping. In our development area, all plots are on a slope. Our neighbor has built a retaining wall with counterforts (height about 1.50 m (5 feet)) directly on the boundary line to our property and has filled behind the retaining wall to level their land accordingly. The feet of the counterforts extend into the neighbor’s property and are covered with soil to prevent the counterforts from tilting towards our property. This is fine with us; we have no problem with that. Now to my question. I would like to excavate about 1 m (3 feet) in front of the retaining wall on our property and either slope it or build our own retaining wall with counterforts in front to level our land. I understand that this would create a combined embankment about 2.50 m (8 feet) high. We can live with that as the spaces in front of this embankment will be office rooms. Who would be responsible if I excavate up to the boundary on my property and the neighbor’s retaining wall shifts? Would that be my responsibility because I excavated, or would it be the neighbor’s responsibility because the subsoil for their retaining wall/counterforts is no longer stable? I don’t know if this has happened before or if it is just a theoretical concern.

Raiweired schrieb:

Would that be my responsibility because I excavated, or would it be the neighbor’s responsibility because the ground is not suitable for their retaining wall/angle?

So the neighbor has built up the existing ground level using appropriate methods and ensured that nothing happens to your property. Everything was done correctly.
If you now excavate, you must act accordingly. If you don’t secure the ground while excavating to prevent their retaining stones from slipping onto your property, a) you’ve made a serious mistake since all the damage will be your problem, and b) you will also have to cover the costs to restore the neighbor’s property.

In short: Anyone who alters the original ground level is responsible for ensuring that nothing happens to their neighbor’s property.

Thank you for the quick and clearly explained response.

You could move your retaining wall a bit further away from the boundary. How far is your office from the boundary?

hanghaus2023 schrieb:

You could move your retaining wall a bit away from the property line.

About 30cm (12 inches), and fill it with potting soil or pots and trailing geraniums.
That’s better than a 2.5m (8 ft) concrete wall,
also when working around it.

Good morning everyone, I gave it some more thought last night. I plan to install my support brackets about 1 meter (3 feet) away from the boundary, with a height of 1 meter (3 feet), and then backfill. This will create a raised bed for flowers, perennials, and shrubs. I will excavate about 30 cm (12 inches) away from the boundary, and therefore away from the neighbor’s retaining wall. Once the support brackets are installed and backfilled, nothing further should happen. The bottom edge of the neighbor’s support brackets will then be approximately 10 cm (4 inches) below the raised bed level after backfilling.