Through the years we have represented several homeowners with damages caused by their neighbors repair. This is actually quite common. As they pump the grout mixture into the ground, they do so at high pressures which often can even cause the ground to heave upwards. Of course, when they are pumping the grout it is also difficult to predict sometimes where it is all going. We have had cases where neighbors even saw grout bubbling out of the ground in their yard. The result can often be cracking or heaving damage to the neighbors home. It can be minimal or dramatic.

Contractors and the engineers monitoring are supposed to be keeping a close eye on the pressures they are pumping at and also on the ground heaving. One problem is the contractors rarely monitor the neighboring homes, even though they probably should. So if something is going wrong elsewhere they are unlikely to catch it in a timely fashion.

So what is a homeowner to do? The first question is what caused the damage. It is entirely possible that the grouting process awakened some dormant sinkhole condition under the neighboring property. If you, the neighbor, have sinkhole coverage then reporting a claim to your carrier is a good place to start. If you do not have sinkhole insurance yourself then you must look to the contractor and engineer doing the work next door. Keep in mind that this stuff does happen and just because it did happen doesn’t mean the contractor was negligent. To win you would need to prove some negligence in which the contractor did the work next door. We have been successful in these types of claims in the past but it requires special attention to detail and is not a case that can just be rushed into blindly.