“Remember the issue of the discrepancy of the surveyed property line? Our “friendly” next door neighbors have informed us that since we are encroaching on their property by “3 feet” they intend to tear down the brick wall in the rear of the property between our two properties so they can build a garage. They said they weren’t sure when that would occur because they had further work to do on the house. I had ordered a new gate to be installed between the wall and our garage to keep the dogs in and when the company came to install it these neighbors told them to leave that ”they were trespassing since 3 feet of the area where the gate was to be installed was on their property.”
I don’t know if you are aware of it but they said that they had tried to discuss this property line issue with Mrs. Lewis, but since she “had Alzheimer” it wasn’t possible and her family didn’t want to discuss it either. As soon as elderly lady was no longer living in the house they tore down a section of the brick wall and installed the wood fence out to their property line.
Do you know what recourse we now have to resolve this issue? I need to have a gate installed to keep the dogs in and I don’t want to simply have a large piece of plywood blocking the opening until the decide to build their garage. Since these people have hardly spoken to us since the day we moved in I get the impression they have already decided that the property line issue will be a big problem and therefore being friendly isn’t worth the effort. We are not really interested in making this a legal issue, but the more obnoxious they are the less concerned we are about getting lawyers involved.”
Response: Well if the neighbors are not going to be so friendly then there are two places you can go. first talk with your local building zoning department regarding setback to the property line. If the set backs are greater than 3 feet then the neighbors shouldn’t be builing a fence there in the first place. Also, check with you closing attorney and get a legal aopinion and recourse since the wall has been there for some time. The last thing you cna do is hopefully reason with your neighbors and design something that will work for both parties. But sometimes no matter how nice you are some folks will always see the class half empty.
