Jeff, court costs alot you are right, but it is your land, put up a cheap fence or destroy his crap if you get no agreement. So if I move next to you you would let me take the other side of your property?
If this is just a typical home storage shed, I wouldn't waste my time doing anything other than moving it and pouring a new pad. It's simple, fast, cheap and the alternatives are all not worth the time and money to explore. Even the simplest solution, which might be, as someone suggested, to work out an agreement for the neighbor to allow you to keep it there, is, in my opinion, not practical, because it creates more issues. It will have to be addressed if if either or you want to sell your properties. There are insurance issues as well. From both parties perspectives, it's just not worth the trouble.
I would also check local ordinances that govern shed reqts, particularly setback and get any necessary permits.
Thank you all for the responses. I thought there might be a law that covered land use that had been ignored for a long time. Now I know the name "adverse possession". I do not think the land has any value as a building site (the stream and wet lands). Most of the neighbors land is on the far side of te stream. This is in New York state so I will look at adverse possession. Thanks again for the replies.
I don't need the booze, but it looks to me like theft. Plain and simple. How is it different than hitching up a tow truck to your $6,000 car and hauling it away? How about a "No Trespassing" sign right in the middle of his "improvements" on your land? I don't like thieves or cheats.
Well, there are limits to everything, and a strip of land that's less than 1% of the area of my lot in a location which I couldn't envision myself or a future owner of our home ever using anyway, just isn't worth getting my pantyhose in knots over.
If you moved in on the other side of me and encroached onto areas I'd landscaped and taken care of over the years that'd be an entirely different matter. But in relationship to my situation with the "new neighbors" the words "Dog in the manger" would probably apply.
Thinking about my situation in retrospect, I was probably cought up in a self-righteous frenzy thinking I could get those folks to apologize and "do the right thing". They didn't rise to the bait, and I've got other fish to fry.
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But, I'm a little suprised to hear your reply above, considering that my first post to this thread was my long winded way of saying that I agreed with what you had just said, namely:
*****Is it worth having a true enemy as a neighbor, plus what is the total value of the land you posess. It could cost 10000 $ to fight, and you may loose, more than money.
*****Did I misread your meaning there?
Jeff
I was first responding to the other post about the shed up for 6 yrs. His case may have the minimum legal time limit requred by that state I was kidding about moving in next door.
But a new neighbor , the one of yours is an easy fight since no time has elapsed and time is what it is about in a claim,. But they are making one, they are making an established exclusive, complete, actual, open , obvious , visible,notorious , hostile , and continuous uniterupted possesion of a portion of your land. These definitions define Adverse Possesion. It is theft in my mind, open, plain as day they are saying FU Jeff, it is ours now . And yes that is what they are saying FU. A good neighbor he is not, not a friend, nothing. I bet you dont ever enjoy each others company. The longer you wait the better their claim is, and yes you will have trouble selling unless you just give up and turn over Quiet Title to that claimed portion. And yes it will cost you
500 mimimum to attorneys fees to give away what you paid for and pay taxes on. I am spending 10000 for 5000 in land to a bitch that thought she could sweet talk me to leave the fence. For me it is the principle of it all. Theft, a thing I do not condone. The man with the shed his case is different, and seems to be more of a mistake than the obvious theft being done on you. It is your property, you can simply bulldose the crap and or put up a cheap fence. Or just put up a fence and start using the police to file trespass charges. The charges are valid and inforceable by the police. If litigation is filed, they will have no claim as it will be a frivilous suit. You can recover court costs and damages if they file now and the case is baseless . There claim is today baseless. If you wait the legal time limit you will have lost that advantage. Time is the key here. without the minimum time required by law to develop Adverse Possesion they have NO CASE... That is why you should act now. The guy with the shed said maybe 6 yrs. Well some states allow 5, some need a minimum of 20. Your case of 1 yr is running fast, you are allowing them to openly steal your land. As I said I would give them 1 week to accept you gave permission and they have no Adverse Possesion or Prescriptive Easement rights, but that they have your Permission to use it. Or I would { and did w/ Mr Beam } destroy it and errect a fence. You are dealing with the scum of the land and the scum with your land. Treat him for what he is a trespassing ,crooked, lowlife, thieving son of a bitch. If it were me id call a demolitiion man with a bulldozer to come out at 8 am sunday and blast some rock and roll and have a beer, while its being destroyed , but I like a good FU on anyone that tries to rip me off. Pay a lawyer ? you dont have to, plus it will cost to much. Do it your self, and enjoy, remember, your neighbor is stealing from you and laughing as he is doing it.You say the neighbor said he couldnt respond till he got a survey of his own? So do you realy beleive he bought the land without a survey ! No , I dont. You simply go to your county records dept, all surveys are certified and registered, you can pull all surveys on both lands and even contact the surveyors if you have questions. You can get copies of all surveys at the records office and then spend some time talking to city officials on the matter for free. You will get good insight and good advise. If both surveys match you won, rip it down if you wish. If they dont match you can file your own case for a judge to rule. But first if they dont match both surveyors should come out for free, together. But I bet your neighbor is not only a thief but a liar, as well.
Im not aware of what "registerd land " is and your neighbor probably is not as well. That may change things in your favor to be at ease. Here we dont have that, or I dont. But you need to research it thoroughly and be sure before you let your guard down. I just know adverse possesion will take what you owned. good luck
Wait a minute.
IMHO if your shed is encroaching on his land, he is perfectly within his rights to demand you move it. He is right and you are wrong. "Adverse possession" gives you a claim to the land also, and thus puts you in a better position to bargain a more reasonable compromise. I think you should either move the shed or buy (or lease) the land under it.
Filing an adverse possession claim is an extremely hostile act and would be best avoided. Proceed with caution.
BTW, why is this suddenly an issue? Did the neighbor just discover the encroachment? Did he just buy the land? Did you do something to piss him off?
Best regards, Bob
I would give the guy one more chance to do the right thing. Then you say stone retaining wall and landscaping? Put an add in a local small print paper for free landscaping. Put a small sign saying the same in your yard just before the paper add hits. That ought to force his hand one way or the other before the scavengers get there. If the stuff is truly on the wrong side of the fence it should be legal.
I have a neighbor who's unoccupied dog house sits on a couple of feet of my yard. I thought about moving it a number of times, but never had.
But on the flip side, behind my lot is a old alley that was abandon. I have been taking care of the old alley strip for 20 years, but technically it not on my original lot plot. I figure i will mow it and use it until someone tells me different. I suppose i could make a case for adverse possession from the city, but then i would just have to pay more taxes.
Bob
Simply because of the way this asshole acted, I would not turn the other cheek. So many times, issues become issues because the culprit acts like an asshole. If he made a genuine apology and offered to do what he could to make things right, I suspect you would be happy to leave him have the land for free. I think I would.
I could be wrong but I believe you can never gain ownership of government property such as road right of ways or alleys by "Adverse Possession". I suppose because there is no owner there to observe whether or not you are using the land without permission. On the other hand, around here, when an alley is abandoned by the city, the city usually deeds ownership to the the adjacent property owners...gets it onto the tax rolls that way.
That depends on what you mean by "a survey". We bought our home twenty years ago without hiring a surveyor as part of the process. We received a "mortgage plot plan" which satisfied the bank holding the mortgage, but it said right on it that the measurements on it locating the house relative to the property lines were not guaranteed acurate.
I'm not one to throw money away without looking for a lower cost way of doing things. I did just what you suggested and got copies of the original surveys of our lot and the neighbor's from our town's building department.
The problem is, I don't have the accurate equipment and the expertise to be able to accurately locate lines and corners from those kind of drawings, especially when I don't even know how to find the reference points somewhere up or down the street, so I wouldn't even know where to start measuring from. That's what surveyors get paid for.
It was physically staking out the property lines and corners that I needed to hire a surveyor for. Now that I've taken photographs and recorded some measurements to those lines from fixed objects like the sides of our house I'll be able to locate them again within a few inches with rather simple measurements.
Interestingly enough the lines this recent survey located were a foot to two feet "off" relative to the sides of the house compared to those on that "mortgage plot plan" we got when we bought the place. I'm assuming the guys who poured the foundation of our house were somewhat casual about where they located it, probably because none of the distances to the property lines are dangerously close to the minimum's permitted by our zoning code.
You can get copies of
I wish I could believe that, but around here the courts are very much an "insider's game" and not places for a neophyte to venture into alone. They are also extremely backed up with cases. Unless I was lucky enough to find a pipeline to a judge I'd expect to get the cold shoulder if he/she encountered me trying to initiate an action without proper legal representation.
But
I wouldn't bet against you on that point, but I prefer to just lump those two definitions together and just think of him as "that asshole".
I suggest we just agree to a difference of opinion on whether or not I should have turned this matter into a major battle with the neighbor. I chose not to because I couldn't see the end being worth the means.
Cheers,
Jeff
If the neighboring owner is not using the land and is only interested in avoiding adverse possession, you may be able to reach an amicable solution. You can prepare a simple document showing that you recognize the encroachment and that he grants you permission to continue the use to some future time or to a revocation by him. The document will need to be signed by both of you and would best be recorded. Since your occupation is thus at his pleasure, adverse possession is then ruled out.
In my working years, we did a variation of this on unused project rights-of-ways. Farmers applied and we issued use permits, revocable when our need arose. Sometimes the use occurred before application was made and we had to suggest that they should make application. Never had problems with this process.
Well, you probably *own* your half of the alley but the city has an easement which presumably has not been abandoned. So, you have the right to possibly limited use of the alley until they want to restore it, if ever. A city may abandon its easement if a sufficient reason is shown. If future restoration is likely, building on the easement would be at your risk,
How about small claims court? Here in California you can get a judgment up to $5,000. You can then attach his wages or put a lien on his house or car. Your only cost would be the filing fee which would probably be less than $100.
Don in Tracy, Calif.
This one must be from my neighbor? Since I have never seen him (her).
I would suggest that you haven't really appreciated what the ends will be. Sooner or later, this will have to be resolved, even if its only when one of you sells the property, or you die and your heirs have to deal with it.
I suggest you initiate a plan of action that will make your neighbor buy the property he has taken. That would be an amicable resolution.
I wouldn't wait around, as he is apparently comfortable doing nothing and hoping you will forget it.
The first step is to send him another certified/return receipt letter demanding payment within 30 days of all past due rent. Set your rate of rent very high; he has no rental contract, so it is up to you to set the rate, and if it is high he will be encouraged to do something.
If he makes an offer then, work it out. If he does nothing, wait thirty days and get a lawyer and sue him for the past due rent. At the same juncture, send another letter demanding payment of the additional rent he has run up (the lawyer might want to send this letter). When you get the lawyer, let the lawyer know that you are willing to sell the property, but you want to be made whole. This case will probably never get to court, as your lawyer will be able to settle on terms that will resolve the problem and possibly even get back the cost of your survey.
I would think the legal costs would be relatively low; your initial consultation will probably be free, and at that time the lawyer can advise you what he thinks the whole cost will be.
Rent is not the issue for Jeff it is ownership. I am going through adverse possesion now. It will cost more to settle this later if you wait, if surveys show his fence is over the line then the expense of a lawyer is not needed or warranted. You ask him to aknowledge his fence is over the line and he has no claim to your land and you in writing give him permission to use it, thereby breaking the chain of possesion he started. If he dissagrees tear his fence down and put up your own if you wish. Waiting only increases his claim. When minimum legal time has passed then your problems will require an Atty. Now his case if he files is frivilous., baseless Frivilous lawsuits are illegal and open you to collect damages and court and atty costs. Waiting will cost you more in the end, much more. Sooner or later this will be legaly addresed, later at much cost. Now its free, your time, waiting can cost 5-10,000.
Yes I would be happy to let him have that little bit of land for free, as long as "free" meant he paid all the legal and associated expenses of relocating the property line. I'd be pleased just seeing our property tax bill drop by about $80 a year because of the reduced square footage of our lot.
But, I suspect that the neighbor won't buy that either, because *his* property taxes would go up, and according to a friend in our town who just had to go through a property line relocation to get an extra couple of feet to meet minimum clearance requirement for adding an addition to his house, the legal, surveying, recording, and miscellaneous other expenses for doing that ran him over $3,000. (Things aren't cheap here in Red Sox Country, and the Great Commonwealth of Taxachusetts has raised the "user fees" for things like recording deeds and stuff to unbelievable levels to feed the Commonwealth budget. Don't get me started...)
But, based on the advice I received here I think I'll try and get him to countersign a letter acknowledging that he's using my land at my pleasure and agreeing not to claim adverse possession at a future date.
There's no doubt that the improvements those new neighbors made in their backyard greatly improved the "view" looking down from my side. The previous owners were nice enough folks, but the guy was in the building trades and the far end of the yard had a decrepit looking shed on it surrounded by ladders, tires, 5 gallon buckets, and other trappings of his profession, all of which have been replaced by lawn, flowers and shrubs.
That previous appearance didn't turn me off, and we saw it was there when we bought our home, but it might have ruffled the sensibilities of someone less tool and DIY oriented than I am if we had we wanted to sell our property back then.
********************************I've long held that property rights with respect to appearance should extend only to the edge of your property, and I'm not in favor of restrictions which affect what a neighbor can do or not do appearance wise on his property. For that reason I'll probably never end up buying our retirement home in a "gated community" with those kind of restrictions, subject to the whims and the "tastes" of the others folks living there.
Case in point, and I hope I haven't posted this here before. Our next door neighbors of some 15 years, whom we've always had a good relationship with, struck it rich through years of hard work in the Pizza business and magnificently enlarged their home last year. Part of their improvements involved building an elevated ramp and parking area for the driveway (heated no less) feeding their new garage.
The guys who did that part of the job were not very particular about the appearance of what they left us looking at on their edge of the property line, so I decided to improve the view from our side by planting a row of 16 Arborvitae bushes next to it, on our side of the line.
When my neighbor saw me and my son schlepping those bushes back from the nursery and digging holes to plant them in, he came over and insisted on paying for them. I countered by telling him that an equivalent check to a local charity we support would make me quite happy, and he did just that the next day. A much nicer nice end to the story than my sitting around bitching about it, dontcha' think?
I documented this one for my friends' amusement at:
Jeff
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