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Neighbor is encroaching on my fence.
Anonymous2 views1 answers
When my neighbor sold his house he had the property surveyed and found that my 50 yr old fence is over the property line a few inches. The new neighbors keep putting yard ornaments - a birdhouse, a stone structure - over the fence and are piling rocks and dirt against the fence, which is bending it, to raise the level of their yard. They are not friendly. I want them to stop harming the fence. Do they own it since technically it is on their property and can they then do whatever they want with it or do I have some recourse? Should I claim adverse possession? I have no desire to fight over a few inches, but do not want to lose my fence.
Stephen Samuel MessuttaReal Estate AttorneyWilmette, IL ·
It is your fence and it would have been neighborly for them to ask you to move it. It remains your property and they don't have a right to damage it arbitrarily, but let's assume for a moment they're naive and don't understand it is stressing the installation. If you agree the fence is encroaching on their property, you are responsible to move it. If you want to dispute that it encroaches, you need to produce a survey showing so and then it's a battle between the surveyors! The survey the seller gave them should have identified whose fence it was by showing that the "good side" (if one side is the posts and the other is the actual fencing sections) is on THEIR side; if there are 2 "good" sides (such as a fence with sections attached BETWEEN the posts) then you need to claim the fence as yours and they have recourse against their seller or the surveyor. Claiming adverse possession would, as you suggest, aggravate things needlessly at this point and in WA state may be unavailable for fences so that won't be addressed at this point.
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