Short answer. No, not if the water is descending naturally. A lower estate is obliged to receive water that comes down from higher land without the intervention of man, and you may not build works to block it. What you can stop is water the neighbour's own works created, channelled or increased.
What the law says
Lower estates are obliged to receive the waters which naturally and without the intervention of man descend from the higher estates, as well as the stones or earth which they carry with them. The owner of the lower estate cannot construct works which will impede this easement; neither can the owner of the higher estate make works which will increase the burden.
Civil Code, Article 637 — Natural Drainage. Read the full provision →
An easement nobody agreed to
This burden is not created by any deed and there is no indemnity for it. It comes with the land, because water runs downhill and the law declines to litigate gravity. Lower estates are obliged to receive the waters which naturally and without the intervention of man descend from the higher estates — and, the article adds pointedly, the stones or earth which they carry with them. Silt, gravel and the debris a storm brings down are part of what the lower owner must take, not a separate wrong.
The two prohibitions are a matched pair
One sentence binds both neighbours. The lower owner cannot construct works which will impede this easement; the higher owner cannot make works which will increase the burden. So the wall, the raised perimeter or the backfill that would keep your yard dry is itself the violation, and the higher owner's terracing, paving or new roof run-off can be one too. Each side is left with the land as it naturally is, and each side loses the right to improve its own position at the other's expense.
Where your actual complaint probably lies
The phrase to build a case on is without the intervention of man. Water that arrives because the neighbour concreted his lot, cut a channel, installed a downspout aimed at your boundary, diverted a creek, or graded his land toward you is not descending naturally — it is being sent. That is not the easement in this article; it is an increase in the burden, which the same sentence forbids. The remedy then is directed at the works that caused it rather than at the flow itself.
How the argument is won
It is won on before-and-after. Photographs of the boundary across several rainy seasons, the date the uphill construction went up, a survey showing the natural contour and where the ground was cut or filled, the volume that now arrives at a point that used to stay dry. Ask what changed uphill and when, because a natural flow that has been the same for thirty years is one you must live with, and a flow that doubled the year after your neighbour paved his yard is a different case entirely.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Spouses Abraham and Melchora Ermino vs. Golden Village Homeowners Association, Inc., Represented By Leticia C. Inukai, G.R. No. 180808, August 15, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Sps. Fernando Vergara and Herminia Vergara vs. Erlinda Torrecampo-Sonkin, G.R. No. 193659, June 15, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →