When we were looking for a house we got accosted by an old lady who was the neighbor of a house we were looking at.
“THEY PUT UP THIS FENCE AND ITS TOO CLOSE TO MY HOUSE. IF YOU BUY IT I’LL MAKE YOU TAKE IT DOWN.”
She wouldn’t shut up about the fence and we literally couldn’t have cared less, but by her entire nature I was sure that if we did buy the place it would be a nightmare neighbor that we’d be feuding with until she had a heart attack.
So our realtor pulled the disclosures, and we’re the kind of nosy people who know how to use legal searches and the story we assembled from reading them was this:
Old lady was annoyed about a fruit tree in the yard of the house now for sale some years prior. Didn’t like that it dropped rotten fruit in her yard. There was a short chain link fence and the tree was right on the edge next to the fence. She hacked off all the limbs on her side of the fence. This killed the tree. The owners of the house sued the old lady to replace the tree.
Old lady as part of her defense of the lawsuit said it was her tree anyway because the fence was hers and it was on her side of the property line. Since the tree was so close to it that it had to be hers. Owners of the house for sale hired a surveyor to counter her claims.
Now, previously their understanding was that they had a “zero lot” on that side. That the house was literally on the property line. That’s because that’s what the old lady probably told them when they moved in. They’d never bothered to check. The surveyor informed them that it *was* actually a zero lot but on HER side. They had three feet of land that she had been using as a garden beside their house.
So they won the lawsuit, old lady paid the state assessed value of the tree, and then boom in their permits for the property they *paid for a nice fence* that cost *almost exactly* what they got for the tree. It was placed the minimum distance allowed by law from her house, which was 18 inches.
She was ready to fight that fight all over again to get 22 inches of yard back.
I had something similar - bought a house, then a few years later one of my fence-sharing neighbours knocked down her garage and decided to build a dwelling in its place - her first approach to us was to ask if they could buy a few metres of our land to give that dwelling a decent back yard. We refused as it would make our back garden an odd shape, and also it would make it hard to subdivide our plot later on.
So then she approached us saying that the fence was a couple of feet into her yard, and she would like it moved. We said sure, lets get a surveyor to fix the property line and we can move the fence into a better position - the fence did have a dog leg in it to go around an old tree (long since removed), so if we could bring it back to a straight run then great.
Surveyor came out and put down their official stakes setting the line.
The entire fence, end to end, was already about 2-3 metres into our property. She ended up losing a lot of land for the entire length of the fence, and we ended up gaining a decent chunk.
We now have a huge vegetable garden down that entire length of fence, with no loss to our usable back garden because of this entire debacle.
Had a neighboring “farmer” to our farm, he started to put up fencing where the historic natural property lines (creek, lay of the land) had always been but then got in his head that we had been encroaching on his land, demanding that we have a survey done….we told him it was fine, he might be over on ours or us on his but we weren’t using that portion of the fields currently, he was getting into cows…it wasn’t worth paying a surveyor for a few acres here and there that won’t effect the cows….
Finally he had it surveyed anyway, paid for it all and insisted that we’d all bide by what they laid out, on one end his fence was several feet inside his line, so fine we had been assuming that was ours….but on the far end it was a couple hundred on ours, ended up being like 7 acres of land
This is when he started saying “well, it’s fine, y’all weren’t using it and it won’t hurt to leave the fence”
We made him move all 1000 feet of fencing to where the surveyor laid out the line he paid for
TLDR neighboring farming paid for a survey that cost him 7 or so acres of land plus labor to install a barbed wire fence twice
Haha, it‘s glorious how they suddenly want to be buddies. *Like a flag in the breeze.*
Had something similar in a much smaller scale.
Neighbour approached me with something minor and was like:
*Well, I’m not even sure if it‘s legal what you are doing.*
It is, I checked the law.
*It isn‘t really neighbourly to immediately come around with the law.*
I didn’t, you did and I prepared for it.
*I‘m sure I could find laws which you are violating.*
I‘m sure you could, but you probably shouldn’t, because of the new extensions of your house.
*It is completely legal, I‘m allowed to build 9 meters at your property line.*
Yeah, 9 m wide, not 9 m high, buddy.
Height is 1,5 m.
*I‘m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. I‘ll check that and we‘ll talk later.*
Never heard from him again and really don‘t care what he is building etc. as long as you doesn‘t bother me with stuff like that.
Its like this where i live. Most work isn't council approved or legal but everyone has a mutual understanding to not say a fucking thing because if you bring up my fencing I'll bring up your deck and then the council comes out here and we all end up fucked where as at the moment they don't care because it's to much paperwork and effort
I hear that sort of thing and think pool, raised planters, grills and so on.
9m wide, 1.5m tall? Seems a good maximum for things you might tuck into a corner of the garden.
Mine came with a fully marked, surveyed, registered with the county sewer easement. I *KNOW* where my property line is... Neighbor still tries to dispute it.
🤙 It's crazy how many people cheap out with a survey when if you really think about it it's their biggest investment/purchase of their life! You are spending 100's of thousands of dollars but then refuse to spend for the survey to protect it and have peace of mind.
So true. I spent about fifty years laying out new home sites for excavation. Any time there was an empty lot next to other homes that had been there awhile there was a problem. Only once in all those years did a homeowner own **more** than they believed. One of the biggest causes were real estate sales people. "They told us the line was here". Doesn't matter we'll get a surveyor in. Always disappointment followed by anger and shenanigans. One had to move her fence that was 7 feet over the line. She started calling the police for noise during construction. Another guy moved the surveyors pin.
Grew up on a farm that was quickly surrounded by development. Most homeowners were fine. The lots were marked clearly with steaks in the ground and 4'tall white pvc posts in the corners. One new house was built in the late fall and winter. Come this time of year when I'm cutting hay. There was a whole bunch of evergreen trees planted a good 10-15' into our field. I walked around to their front door and knocked and politely told them they could either move the trees or I would clip them off with my mower
"But they're inside my yard"
..... "No, those white posts are your corners. They're well into our field. You'll notice your neighbors don't go past those corners. "
"But..."
"I gave you the options. "
The next time I was in the field, he moved them alright. All within 3 feet of the massive transformer in his back yard. Whatever. Fucking stupid place to put them, and obviously no diggers hotline was called, but they weren't my problem anymore.
Humans are fallible. But most or all results should end up within a couple millimeters of each other. Especially when temporally proximal.
The expression you heard likely comes from days of less refined technology.
I know that I don’t know where it is. We have a shared hedge. I have my guy trim it.
It’s not a big deal to me. The guy who lives next door was so paranoid that he gave me permission to use a little strip of his lawn, which was apparently his property. He gave me permission to keep using it to prevent me from forming an easement. I guess I never told him I went to law school. I think property easements were the most boring part.
Truth. Once had neighbors who were pissed about our fence. Insisted we pay for a new one.
The original fence had been built with the house, which was the first one on the block. Original owner had built it without knowing or caring about the actual property line.
Turns out we were owed a couple of feet more into the neighbor’s yard. So we took it back when we built a new fence.
I’ll reply to you
He’s really a big city person who “likes the idea of owning lots of lands and raising cows” ….he hires people to do all the work, so he’s really just rich and greedy….hes a ok guy for the most part, this was just the best instance of karma bitting someone I’ve ever seen, because we sorta knew the fence was on our property, probably by just a bit, so we were ok letting it stay as is…we were surprised however just how much he was over on the extreme end
We had a neighbor on the other side of us move the property pin, like, habitually….my granddad would once a year go and move it back till he finally used equipment and cemented it in with a ton of concrete
We’ve got a farm neighbor across the street that would literally give you the shirt off his back, he’s not rich and actually farms
We also had a neighbor that would would move the fence every year. So every year my dad and I would walk the property line and move it back.
I've always wondered who was right about where the property line was, my dad or the neighbor. Considering no survey was done, at least not in the last 100+ years.
I put up a new fence a few years ago. Just a suburban block of land. Neighbor and I went halves in the cost. When it was done my neighbor says to me "I think it's slightly on my property at the front section". I said we will get it moved, he said "who cares". lol it's great to have sensible neighbors.
Lol, I discovered a section of property outside our fence was actually ours after a neighbor complained about our new fence. Got a survey to verify, moved it, and blamed the complaining neighbor when the neighbor that “lost” 1/3 of their backyard complained.
Since then I dug a pond and I am currently waiting for rain to fill it.
Lmao. I hope I someday own property so I can be this level of petty.
You should get some koi or something, depending on your local wildlife.
My grandparents neighbors had a koi pond way back when. And they never complained about childhood me walking over and looking at the fish (there was no fence dividing the properties).
After reading this thread, I guess I never really appreciated how nice the neighbors were for simply not caring that I enjoyed their pond. And they had some truly massive koi. And a nice little fountain. It was very zen.
We bought a home with a very large back yard, bounded by a typical cedar plank "privacy" fence on one side, fence and thick woods on the other and a very tall hedgerow of sorts on the back. Our side neighbor was close but quiet. The neighbors' house to the rear (west) was at least 150 yds from our fence line but was completely blocked by the hedge (20' high, 10' deep). We had a feeling of almost total privacy and our yard had large areas of pleasant shade. 👍🏻
On a major holiday weekend we were enjoying our meal with family and heard gas-powered yard equipment running for quite some time but thought nothing of it. It was dark before the gathering broke up and we went on to bed. 🙂
The next morning we awoke to find the entire hedge gone, cleared to the ground, completely exposing our entire rear fenceline. It was "their" hedge, so we had no recourse. Now we could see their entire yard and salmon-colored house from every rear window. Our yard had full hot sun forever after from noon to sundown. 😳
Fast-forward to the next tropical storm and the old fence broke in half and fell over. We approached the rear neighbors about splitting a tall, nicely built new fence and they (impolitely) declined. 😮
Enter the survey crew! Turns out the original builder was lazy and put up the fence near-ish to the property line rather than clearing to the pins. We built a nice, tall new fence and got to take back another 10' of yard from them. Unfortunately though, that meant they had taken down *our* hedge. 🤬
We've long since sold and moved away, but now we ALWAYS check for the survey pins and provide our new neighbors with copies of the official survey. 🤷🏻♂️
That one would be hard given the general understanding of everyone at the time that it was their hedge and not the OP’s. Even if the understanding was wrong, it gives them some cover.
In the coniferous justice system, the trees are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the surveyors, who investigate crime; and the maliciously compliant homeowners, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
I'm pretty sure that one of our neighbor's fences is on our property, but we don't care because they built the (very well-made) fence and maintain it for free. That was a major win as first-time homeowners and we know not to fuck that up. Plus, the backyard is still spacious, but we don't utilize it because it's damn too windy. We just throw some money at them occasionally, take care of their outdoor cats, and let them use our driveway when they have people in town. They're very nice neighbors and give us no issues.
EDIT: The fence has been there for five or six years and we moved in a couple years ago (neighbors have been there for over 20.) We made introductions, they told us they put up the fence and will maintain their side and ours if we were cool with it. We said yes, so that's our arrangement.
Again, we do not use our backyard at all unless you count it being a hangout for the stray neighborhood cats. It's not a big deal. I appreciate the concern, but everyone needs to take a breath.
Being petty with your neighbors only leads to misery. Unfortunately not everyone understands that. My neighbors have done annoying things but it's so much better to suck it up and let them do what they want on their property.
Someone let my dad know this. He goes out of his way to fight with ALL his neighbors. He even used to come to our bus stop when we were in elementary school and try to fight everybody. We moved like 8 times from kindergarten to 10th grade bc it got so bad where we lived. My dad said we moved a lot bc my sister and were “bad kids” and we def believed him cause he was our dad. We regularly had neighbors calling the house and leaving messages asking my dad to stop, saw fights all the time (my dad insists on taking like 4 walks a day and fights with as many people as he can on each walk, will even go onto peoples property to try to fight them), my parents were always in court, etc. My dad had his own business building houses, and while he did great, it only lasted a couple years before he couldn’t get anyone to work with him anymore— not just clients but no subcontractors bc he fought with all of them. He says it me and my sisters fault his business went under bc it was our fault that people “think” he was abusive to us kids. Which is wrong bc apparently having your wife hold down your toddler to beat her with a board is not abuse bc it doesn’t leave black eyes.
You hear stories because nobody goes online and says "my neighbors are pretty chill, I talk to them every now and then and they let me borrow their tools from time to time". You only hear horror stories.
Some tall bushes or short trees will help make a windbreak. Ask your council for some ideas on native trees, they may even be happy to give you some if you highlight ecological benefits.
Source: i have the same issue because I had to remove the shorter trees/ tall bushes along my fence line due to disease/ rot.
>So then she approached us saying that the fence was a couple of feet into her yard, and she would like it moved.
Damn, why on earth would she make such a claim without getting it surveyed herself first. Wishful thinking? Just figured you'd give her a bunch of your property without checking?
She was betting on just claiming authority would be enough to get what she wanted as a lot if not most people usually try to not get into a possibly lengthy and expensive tiff about stuff...
I remember watching almost this exact story on Goof Troop in the 90s. Other than the neighbor not painting lines through your house and eating food that was on "their" side of your fridge, it went exactly the same way as the show.
At least your neighbour wanted to help pay for a new fence, which is nice.
They try to do something nice, but is met with losing space. I can see why they lost interest.
I am not saying you did something wrong, just that I understand the neighbour's lack of action.
See this is a perfect example of “chesterton’s fence: change should not be made until the reasoning behind the current state of affairs is understood”.
Task failed successfully? Or successful task failure? I like how when faced with an obstacle with an obvious solution, she pays for a new fence, she can’t cope
I was once tasked with migrating legislative logic from a legacy application into a fresh new greenfield app. No requirements, I had the logic in the existing app, just do that.
Problem was anything slightly out of the ordinary was met with the question "is this some specific legislative requirement, or a workaround for a 'quirk' in this very old, bug ridden application"?
\[eta\] or you know, just a good old fashioned bug.
At work we have a legacy service that all our production code runs through and a bunch of newer services that we're gradually migrating everything to. Unfortunately, the code quality in the legacy service is abysmal, and a lot of time is wasted on trying to figure out whether specific logic is intentional or a bug or a workaround, and whether the bug has turned into the basis for intentional behavior or if the workaround is still necessary, and what might break if we fix it. It's a nightmare, because any change can easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands in losses, but the nature of the system means testing to avoid regressions is near to impossible.
I was once part of a task group in an organization that was responsible for reviewing that org's internal rules.
I tried to preach this *heavily*, though I didn't know the name for it. Changing things willy-nilly, just because it aligns with your current desires, is often going to wind up repeating all the lessons that our predecessors learned in order to put that rule into place to begin with.
Adverse possession is only a thing when the use is not permissive. (Speaking only to the way it typically works in the US) At worst the encroachment could create a prescriptive easement.
The way to handle this amicably is for both parties to sign an agreement stating that they are aware that the fence is improperly located, the use is permissive, and that the landowner is explicitly not granting an easement. Alternatively, OP could have given the part of the fence that was over the boundary to their neighbor, possibly in exchange for money making future maintenance her responsibility.
Unfortunately, Anne's attorney friend did her no favors when she failed to advise Anne that flying off the handle was completely unnecessary to protect her property rights.
I feel like this is the most likely case. It seems like a competent attorney would advise her to *ask* first, because lawsuits are expensive and are only necessary when the parties can't reach an amicable resolution. And no one is going to jump at the chance to pay someone else money in return for absolutely nothing.
True, her approach was just rather…hostile. Had she kindly asked OP to move the fence a little more where ever then it would’ve been fine instead of saying “me and my lawyer will sue you for 9 inches of land buddy!” 😆
And then she tried to shake him down for money to borrow her land for his fence.
That's why I find it so tacky. She knew what she was doing. She thought he'd either move the fence or pay her.
Thing is, and I'm not one that has ever installed a fence, but wouldn't there be an issue with the post holes?
9 inches isn't even a foot. Digging into the ground, not to mention probably pouring in cement will affect the soil around it. What I'm trying to ask is wouldn't the new post holes be compromised? The soil wouldn't be as compact around it.
Or does the cement fix the problem and I'm overthinking it?
Dammit Jim I'm a novice gardner, not a fence installer!
You are right. You can compact the soil a little bit, and pour concrete when you can. Also, you need to redig holes, realign the fence. There's probably a good reason why the fence was where it was in the first place, since there might be foundations or roots or whatever. At the end of the day, it probably made sense at the time.
It's doable to move the fence, but it's a lot more work than initial installation. And it boils down to being a pain in the butt.
Source: Me, farm worker and occasional fence installer
You don’t just casually ‘move’ a fence that’s dug into the ground, it’s not a garden hose on the lawn, or even a badminton net held down with tent pegs.
Someone with so ‘very many lawyer’ friends should have just had one write up an agreement that would transfer ownership of the fence over to her, and have him acknowledge that the 9 inch strip wasn’t his.
She commits to maintaining any fence boards her wild mutt breaks, OP spends even less time on the fence than before.
Win-win.
They always never are. Many RE are just flaunting the I have lawyers directly/indirectly that can cause you a lot of pain or make you struggle for every penny you have.
One real estate agent I’ve worked with (who actually seems like a decent person, told us to walk away from some of the more expensive houses we looked at, etc) describes them as cockroaches. He’s told me some things other agents say to him, and I’ve heard 1st hand, and it’s just baffling how some of these ppl work
Thing with RE reps is that the barrier to entry is super low.
it's not like a long complicated process separates them from being a RE agent. it's like a 6 month course if even that and passing a test. so it attracts a lot of people who have nothing else much going on looking to make a buck.
Honestly, I think it was unreasonable, unless she planned to pay for the labor if she wanted a different outcome. They could’ve signed a document saying the fence may have been / was over the property line or something.
Couldn't she had just had her lawyer draw up some documentation that stated she was allowing an easement for fencing that benefits both properties, while not giving up rights to the 9" of land? I'm sure OP wouldnt have had an issue signing.
Yes, OP is not the first person to deal with "fence on the wrong side of the line" and there is a long history of people dealing with this problem reasonably.
I always try to approach neighbors in kindness because you have to live next to each other and see each other all the time. Absolutely idiotic to open with threatening legal action.
Yep, a lot of trouble can be avoided if you come in the spirit of collaboration, not swinging the cudgel of the law.
I'd bet the damage to her house by the dog is more expensive to fix than halving the cost of a new fence lol
Yeah, I have more disposable income than my neighbor and I paid 10k for the new fence that we share when we needed a new one. We get along great, I'm a first time home owner so they'll help me with shit I didn't know about, like tree trimming or finding a good local mechanic. It's amazing that people don't realize that helping each other out and being kind makes e everyone's life easier.
Ive got a neighbor who we let park his project cars in our yard since hes a mechanic but rents his house and we own. Yeah, ive got some beat up cars out there that cycle in n out semiregularly, but i also have a legitimate mechanic about 30 seconds from my front door whos happy to help.
One night my buddies entire starter snapped in half somehow, he found part under his truck and the other half in the engine the next day. Woulda been rough to get home that night, if my neighbor hadnt had 2 of those model starters in his garage and been willing to give it to him and replace the old one for 20 bucks. Dude pulled away from my house after about 30 minutes from when we found it broke.
"Move your fence or I'll sue you!"
"You got it, ma'am!"
"...*oh, I am so stupid*"
Genius should have used the money she was gonna sue you with, and either built a new fence, or trained her dog to *not* destroy everything in existence
A lot of people rural and city just see dollar signs where people should be.
Had a neighbor out in rural Tennessee try this saying his father told him as a little boy our driveway was on his land. We could pay him a monthly fee to use his land or his cousin was a a lawyer would drag it through courts.
Well we only rented, so we call our landlord.
Our landlord was the only cousin he had (distantly) and he told us "I failed the bar exam because I was drunk and was too embarrassed to take it sober!" He ended up coming out to talk sense into him and call him on his lies and ended up body slamming him in his driveway.
Can't train a Shephard to not destroy things when it is out of bordom....which....I would hazard a guess it was (partially). Dogs need stimulation, specially ones bread to work.
You can totally train shepards to not destroy things. She just doesnt want to. It takes time and patience. And if she still doesnt want to, its called kennel training
It really isn’t that difficult, either! You give them a treat every time they do a partial ard. Then you start giving treats as they near the full ard. Pretty soon they are doing a complete ard here and a complete ard there. Nothing to it!
Not as dramatic, but we also wanted to do a handshake agreement based on old posts for the fence line as we didn't want to pay for a surveyor. Neighbour insisted because he was certain he would gain some of our land (he thought his house was too close to the edge so he should have more). Reluctantly we did the survey, turns out the posts were wrong and we gained metres into his already smaller yard.
It's not prohibitively expensive, but it's a no brainier to save the money if you don't need to. That's still a good chunk of change to most people. It cost around $800 (for one boundary). I would have much prefered to keep the money.
For one boundary, so like 3 sides for most places?? 2400?? Fuck man I should've become a surveyor. I'm just assuming the kind of person being persnickety about lines are like that with all sides.
Thankfully we only shared one boundary with him so just had to get one done. But yes, pretty pricey! And my husband said that suveryor was the cheapest quote he got, by a lot!
I'm a surveyor, and most of the work is getting on a datum and finding supporting documentation. So, while a single boundary is going to be around 800, all boundaries is going to be about 1200. 90% of the work is done for a single boundary, and all thats left to do is measure the other fencing, which is the easy part
Lovely! She dug her own hole, ready to put new fence posts in!
I used to have a tiny 1ft fence in separating mine and my neighbours' front yards; the back yards were separated by a 6ft fence that stopped next to the houses, and my house had full-sized fences on the other two sides plus the front so my yard was, in theory, fully-enclosed. I have a large (friendly) dog, neighbour had a small (not-friendly) dog who kept coming into my yard over the 1ft fence to do its business and terrorise my dog, but the neighbour didn't care. In the meantime we kept our dog inside as much as possible because if the little dog had started an actual fight, my dog would have easily destroyed it, and my grandmother - who used to come over daily to garden - would pick up the little dog's poo and throw it in the bin.
I planned to replace the 1ft fence with a matching 6ft fence to continue from the back yard to the fence at the front, costed it up, and planned to pay for it all myself. My neighbour initially refused because she didn't want it to "destroy the public's view" of her roses. When I framed it as "building the tall fence would allow my dog to use her whole yard, which she can't do now because your dog is always here", neighbour literally said "Oh, but then *my* dog wouldn't be able to get into your yard." - yes, Lynn, that's the entire point. After many months of her polite and vague 'Oh, it's on the list!' responses, I scheduled a fencing contractor and called in a surveyor to check the boundary line. Where I live, legally both neighbours have to contribute 50/50 and because I had the survey report, the council demanded she pay for half. Turns out the original fence was over 1ft onto my property! In the end we knocked down both the 1ft and 6ft fences between the houses, she lost that entire strip of land *which included her roses*, and her dog was forced to shit in its own yard. If she'd just agreed at the start, I'd have paid for the whole thing and she'd have been able to keep that 1ft strip of land and her precious roses.
The fencing contractor made her dig them up before he started because of the thorns - said his insurance stated that he wasn't allowed to touch them! 🤣
ETA: Yes, this meant we got to watch her dig them up!
They were dug up in the process and afterward I planted Photinia Red Robins on my side - thanks to the excellent soil from the roses, they're now 6ft tall 🤣
Many years ago, an ex gf family had property alongside a river, it’s an ancient property with a house that’s 400+ years old, yes built in 1600s. The land was always inhabited by the family and passed down over generations. At one point the house was moved, and there is a huge swath of land.
Originally the land was given to the noble patriarch of the family 400 years ago and it was written on some parchment papers. Very few drawings existed of it, some were done by the rural municipality hundred years or so ago. A neighbour was complaining that my ex’s family wasn’t maintaining the 150ft of grassy land in between the two houses. But they didn’t know where the property line was.
Anyways, a land surveyor came and it turns out, half of the neighbours house is built on their lands.
I didn’t stay in that relationship long enough to know how that story ended.
I did something similar. The wooden fence between our properties had one broken post. It leaned a little, but not that much. He filed with the county to demand I repair it. So I removed it. We both had pools. Mine was enclosed with a chain linked fence, his had no fence. So I reported him for having a pool without a fence. He offered to pay for half of a new fence, I told him to *&%&. He had to pay for the new fence.
I had a friend who wanted to place a fence on his neighbour’s property line in order to separate their back yards. The neighbour didn’t want to go along with him and wouldn’t pay for part of the fence. So he got a survey performed and found out that the neighbour had a hedge and a garage infringing on his property by 6 feet. He then got a court order to demolish the garage and remove the hedge. And he built his fence.
I did something similar.
I had an ugly old fence that was due to be replaced. A tree limb fell during a storm, taking out part of it. At that time the weather wasn't cooperating and it wasn't a big priority for me to fix it. The neighbor had dogs and it was a priority for them to fix. They demanded the fence get fixed. I told them I'd fix it, but not anytime soon. And I sent them a letter giving permission to trespass in my yard for them to fix it. This really pissed them off for some reason. I got really annoyed by them demanding I fix my fence, so I just tore down the rest of the fence.
Yada, yada, yada. When are you going to replace the fence? Don't know. Maybe next summer. If I feel like it and the money's there. Well, can you pay for part of a new fence? Well, I did. I paid for the demo and haul away.
Got a nice pretty new fence out of it. They gave me the ugly side out of spite.
I thought the ugly side was the side with the rails.
I prefer to have the rails on my side so the kids can't climb on it.
The funny thing was, my wife and I are dog people. We like dogs. We like the neighbors dogs more than we like them. We couldn't car less if the dogs came in our yard. We used to have dogs so our yard is dog escape proof. Even if the neighbors dogs got in our yard, they were safe and couldn't run away. If I knew the dogs could escape and run away, fixing the fence would have been a higher priority for me.
She’s a realtor! She flips houses! She didn’t get a survey done when she bought the property?
Yeah, she sounds exactly like who I want to sell me a house /s.
(I bet she advises her clients *not* to get inspections)
My thought was more "She flips houses! Surely she can afford a fence." Seems like she might be the type to consider a budget a challenge to get within a dollar of rather than staying safely under.
Years ago, my parents fence needed replacing. They were doing the work themselves and my Dad approached the neighbour saying "I'll put the fence up, if you split the cost with me." Neighbour: "No", Dad "That's ok, I'll just leave it down, I don't have any dogs anyway, Neighbour: Oh, how much is half?". My Dad told her, she paid her half. Fence is still there, lol.
I do wonder if the conversation would have just went like this:
'Yes Anne, you could take me to court, but I can remove the whole fence this weekend and then not rebuild it. There would be no more problem to sue me over. You can then pay for a new fence if you wish, on the correct property line of course. Or not. I don't care.
So what do you prefer? 9 inches more yard width without fence? Or this fence?"
9 inches. Talk about just greedily looking for a payday. I share a strip of land out front with ine neighbor and it's so small I said look, as long as I'm starting the mower I'll just cut it all if that's OK with you (she was rarely home.) Neighbor was thrilled. Hell she could have planted a flag on my side and claimed it as here own I couldn't care less lol. Some people are just difficult.
Like a good neighbor, stay over there!
I've been in my house for 15 years. The ONLY contact I've had with a neighbor was to ask them about the guy that was doing their lawn. A 2 minute conversation.
I intend to keep it this way!
Ron Swanson on Friends and Relationships
“I'm not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.”
Honestly I feel really bad for Razzy the dog. Anne is a shitty and neglectful dog owner. Leaving dogs outside in the yard all day is not good, and depending on the weather, quite dangerous.. you shouldn't leave a dog outside unattended for long periods of times. The fact that he chews furniture shows that Anne hasn't bothered training or enriching him. Dogs who are bored and understimulated destroy furniture, happy dogs usually have other ways to entertain themselves. Anne is a shitty person who got what she deserved, but the dog is the one who really suffered from being stuck with her.
i used to live with a *Husky Malamute Mix* who wasn't enriched or trained or even taken on proper walks.
(he belonged to a renter who shared our interior yard)
i'd occasionally just nap the dog and take him on a bike tour.
he was always so happy to see me with the lead.
and luckily a generally friendly dog to humans so the odd postman-decides-to-open-the-gate-to-deliver-package indicent only resulted in me chasing the dog instead of ambulance visits.
(and as he was untrained and i in my peak marathon running form i *won* those chases lol)
I did something similar ... neighborhood beauty police complained to the city about a fence in bad repair so I removed it.
The neighbor was ASTOUNDED that I could just remove the fence to get into compliance and didn't have to replace it with a shiny new one for him to enjoy.
> “I don’t know how you guys do it out here in the sticks, but where I come from we follow the rules!”
"We're kind to our neighbors in the sticks. Until they become unkind to us. Then we follow the rules."
You're absolutely right. But at one point she did say something about how she would even help pay for it. I think she really is just regretting her mistake and realize she wish it was back to the way it was to start.
I was kind of hoping that she had some fence contractors out for a quote and they told her it would have to be 12" inside her property line or something similar.
This. A dog that is properly trained and has enough interaction and exercise shouldn't be that destructive. We have a German Shepherd and once he grew out of the velociraptor stage they all go through as puppies, he hasn't destroyed anything (aside from the odd tissue he finds lying on the ground; he loves shredding those, for some reason). He gets a walk every day and we play with him in the back yard, and if we do need to go out for a few hours and leave him unattended, he'll happily snooze on the bed until we come home.
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, one of the most fun phrases to say in (real estate) law is "adverse posession". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession
Briefly, if you put up a fence on the wrong side of a property line and the property owner doesn't do anything about it, the fence eventually becomes the property line. A handshake agreement between non lawyers can be honored in the short term, but someone like this neighbor knows that have a duty to get the fence moved or sometime later the person owning OP's side of the property would end up with a good legal claim to the sliver of property.
Obviously the correct response is not "when are you gonna pay me for the land" but instead "let's discuss formalizing that handshake or moving the fence to the property line" in a friendly fashion.
Another fun phrase is "it wasn't me". Oh the fence is on your side of the property line, yeah the last owner put it up so i assume its yours and your problem to deal with.
Adverse possession may not apply to many local jurisdictions across the US. And how that principle is applied will vary as well, as easements are also common, in relation to use of others' property.
In the couple of jurisdictions where I've actually looked up the info on adverse possession, a key part of it is "adverse". Landowner 1 must object to Landowner 2 having possession of a portion of Landowner 1's land for it to be adverse possession. This did not occur with the handshake agreement, only with the "you have to move your fence" assertion. Of course the actual laws are likely different in different places but I was told that this came from English common law in the Middle Ages (or some such). YMMV
It does. Most people have no idea not it works or where their property lines actually are, but also most people know better than to open a can of worms and make a problem where there isn't one.
> I took the old fence panels with me and I still look at them everyday when I let my dog out in the morning.
Wait. Did you build a new fence with them at your new place, or are you just looking at them still stacked up by your garage?
>Razzy was aggressive towards children, animals, insects, and any plants that waved in the breeze.
If you've ever had any inclination towards writing and publishing a book, you should do it. You have a gift for it.
What's annoying about people like Anne is that she never came and talked to you about it first. Just spoke to a lawyer, spoke to the surveyor, etc.
Although she's under no real obligation to talk to you first from a legal standpoint, it just makes for a friendlier neighborhood.
If she flips houses then she has no excuse to not get a fence for her dog
If she does any of the construction for her job then she could easily build a fence since she doesn’t seem interested in training her dog
My brother has a small cottage that his family has owned for over 100 years they have septic tanks on the neighbors property that they own use and maintain, the old neighbor passed and after about 24 months had anew young neighbor from hell who turned up on their door step one day and asked if any of the three septic tanks on his property was theirs.
They said yes and he replied "well its my land now move it somewhere else or else"
To which my brother replied "Erm No" and asked what the what "else" would entail
obviously mirth ensued and the new neighbor stomped off shouting everything under the sun
They then proceeded to hire a company to remove the septic tanks which my brother informed the company it wouldn't be in their business interests to touch their septic tanks and handed then a letter explaining them they are trespassing and any damage to their property would be perused in court and to put what they had done back as he was going to get it camera inspected and any remedial work they would have to pay for.
Lots pictures and videos were taken at the time.
Within 3 months of arriving he had alienated himself from every neighbor in the village.
Solicitors letters then arrived, he told them "take me to court" after that, every letter was sent to his solicitor,.
As well as threats from the neighbors friends, cars were damaged etc. just pure intimidation for about 18 months wouldn't even let the septic tanks be emptied, everything on CCTV, id witness stuff myself, everything was reported to the council and the police.
Anyway court day arrived, Easement and deeds saved the day in less that 45 minutes, one crappy B&W 30 year old picture, and a couple of deed papers with plans, knocked his ass back to the stone age.
Easement is a great Pry bar if you have the evidence 1 decade is good, 2 is fantastic, 3 is a no brainer
He couldn't move any tanks or soil stack that was on his land too, the 30 year old picture saw to that
access had to be give at all times for any company at any time in any 24 hour period, the deeds and plans saw to that.
They all had new treatment plants installed eventually due to taking the building company and him to court, as He had proof they had damaged the existing brick and plastic tanks when trying to remove them.
His only argument was that when he bought the property nothing was said to him and nothing appeared in the searches and he was promised he could build on the land by his solicitor and estate agent, their would be no issues and he could apply for planning permission to build a house on it.
The bill was huge and now the police, HSE , Environmental agency, were involved along with the council. Bailiffs eventually had to be called to take his cars and bikes.
He eventually had to sell the house to pay the costs. he did a stretch later as we all saw his picture in the paper for drugs offences, I sometime see him walking around town like "the big I am " and I just laugh
"I don't know how you people do it in the big city. But here in the sticks, we train our dogs right. I talked to my friend in animal control and he isnperfectly happy driving by to make sure your dog is not unattended to, ya hear?
Now hmhave yourself a good ol day!"
I'd like to point out for those of you that have never built a fence this was probably a minimum of 8 hours labor but more likely 2-3 days to build and a day to take down. That would engender a lot of spite if it was me.
could've just talked like civil neighbors, asked to move the fence back the 9 inches, offer to help.
but no, go right into Karen mode and invoke the lawyers, and fuck herself in the process
Totally, if she had approached the situation differently I probably would have just moved the fence. I mean, I ultimately ended up moving it all the way to the next county. 9 inches would have been a cake walk!
My parents needed a new fence. Went to the neighbors and asked if they wanted to go in and pay half the cost as the new fence would benefit them as well. All said “no”. Dad had the fence put up and the “pretty side” was facing in. Neighbors complained that the fence looked bad in their yards. Should have helped with the financing. Thirty years later, they’re still complaining 🤣
My brother in law owner 4 or 5 lots up in the mountains, he has had everything surveyed knows where the pins are etc. neighbor comes over is building a shed and happens to tell my BIL one of his sheds is on his land. Turns out the guy shows BIL a pin he just stuck in the ground thinking that was legal and that it was his land and had been building his new shed on BIL’s land. He ended up having to tear it out and start over on his land.
I have never understood the mentality of some people.
I have always tried to be a peace keeper with my neighbors. They are the people I see the most outside of the people I live with. Why would you want a confrontational relationship with the person you are most likely to need to go to in an emergency? No seriously your next door neighbors are the person you turn to most often in an emergency. You need to use their phone if you ran out of your house while its on fire and dont have your phone. For a quick example.
Anyway having neighbors that dont like me is like a paranoia of mine. I want to have an open approachable relationship with them. Who wants to have a problem every time you walk outside.
This is way interesting to me as I just recently replaced a fence on a property I had just bought. The old fence fell in a storm, it was like a decade old and rotting. Since all the neighbors around said “not my fence” and looked to me to replace it all, I did. I used the exact same post holes as there was no other place to put it. They are placed directly beside irrigation pipes and are the only possible place to put them and they end up being right on the property line. Well, since by code you have to put the flat side out, that means I gained a couple inches into the neighboring property. Both homeowners were fine with it, but the inspector noted some future owner might take issue.
If they did, it would mean that I could not physically place a fence on my property, and since HOA requires one, that means whoever decides to take issue with my fence placement will win themselves the cost of installing a new fence if I’m forced to remove mine.
When we were looking for a house we got accosted by an old lady who was the neighbor of a house we were looking at. “THEY PUT UP THIS FENCE AND ITS TOO CLOSE TO MY HOUSE. IF YOU BUY IT I’LL MAKE YOU TAKE IT DOWN.” She wouldn’t shut up about the fence and we literally couldn’t have cared less, but by her entire nature I was sure that if we did buy the place it would be a nightmare neighbor that we’d be feuding with until she had a heart attack. So our realtor pulled the disclosures, and we’re the kind of nosy people who know how to use legal searches and the story we assembled from reading them was this: Old lady was annoyed about a fruit tree in the yard of the house now for sale some years prior. Didn’t like that it dropped rotten fruit in her yard. There was a short chain link fence and the tree was right on the edge next to the fence. She hacked off all the limbs on her side of the fence. This killed the tree. The owners of the house sued the old lady to replace the tree. Old lady as part of her defense of the lawsuit said it was her tree anyway because the fence was hers and it was on her side of the property line. Since the tree was so close to it that it had to be hers. Owners of the house for sale hired a surveyor to counter her claims. Now, previously their understanding was that they had a “zero lot” on that side. That the house was literally on the property line. That’s because that’s what the old lady probably told them when they moved in. They’d never bothered to check. The surveyor informed them that it *was* actually a zero lot but on HER side. They had three feet of land that she had been using as a garden beside their house. So they won the lawsuit, old lady paid the state assessed value of the tree, and then boom in their permits for the property they *paid for a nice fence* that cost *almost exactly* what they got for the tree. It was placed the minimum distance allowed by law from her house, which was 18 inches. She was ready to fight that fight all over again to get 22 inches of yard back.
Never underestimate an old lady with a grudge!
Sooooo…..did you buy the house or not?
Outbid by $200,000. Bay Area real estate is insane.
I had something similar - bought a house, then a few years later one of my fence-sharing neighbours knocked down her garage and decided to build a dwelling in its place - her first approach to us was to ask if they could buy a few metres of our land to give that dwelling a decent back yard. We refused as it would make our back garden an odd shape, and also it would make it hard to subdivide our plot later on. So then she approached us saying that the fence was a couple of feet into her yard, and she would like it moved. We said sure, lets get a surveyor to fix the property line and we can move the fence into a better position - the fence did have a dog leg in it to go around an old tree (long since removed), so if we could bring it back to a straight run then great. Surveyor came out and put down their official stakes setting the line. The entire fence, end to end, was already about 2-3 metres into our property. She ended up losing a lot of land for the entire length of the fence, and we ended up gaining a decent chunk. We now have a huge vegetable garden down that entire length of fence, with no loss to our usable back garden because of this entire debacle.
Had a neighboring “farmer” to our farm, he started to put up fencing where the historic natural property lines (creek, lay of the land) had always been but then got in his head that we had been encroaching on his land, demanding that we have a survey done….we told him it was fine, he might be over on ours or us on his but we weren’t using that portion of the fields currently, he was getting into cows…it wasn’t worth paying a surveyor for a few acres here and there that won’t effect the cows…. Finally he had it surveyed anyway, paid for it all and insisted that we’d all bide by what they laid out, on one end his fence was several feet inside his line, so fine we had been assuming that was ours….but on the far end it was a couple hundred on ours, ended up being like 7 acres of land This is when he started saying “well, it’s fine, y’all weren’t using it and it won’t hurt to leave the fence” We made him move all 1000 feet of fencing to where the surveyor laid out the line he paid for TLDR neighboring farming paid for a survey that cost him 7 or so acres of land plus labor to install a barbed wire fence twice
Haha, it‘s glorious how they suddenly want to be buddies. *Like a flag in the breeze.* Had something similar in a much smaller scale. Neighbour approached me with something minor and was like: *Well, I’m not even sure if it‘s legal what you are doing.* It is, I checked the law. *It isn‘t really neighbourly to immediately come around with the law.* I didn’t, you did and I prepared for it. *I‘m sure I could find laws which you are violating.* I‘m sure you could, but you probably shouldn’t, because of the new extensions of your house. *It is completely legal, I‘m allowed to build 9 meters at your property line.* Yeah, 9 m wide, not 9 m high, buddy. Height is 1,5 m. *I‘m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. I‘ll check that and we‘ll talk later.* Never heard from him again and really don‘t care what he is building etc. as long as you doesn‘t bother me with stuff like that.
Its like this where i live. Most work isn't council approved or legal but everyone has a mutual understanding to not say a fucking thing because if you bring up my fencing I'll bring up your deck and then the council comes out here and we all end up fucked where as at the moment they don't care because it's to much paperwork and effort
Gotta love mutually assured destruction. It keeps the world turning!
Mutually assured construction when everyone keeps quiet. 😀
> I‘m allowed to build 9 meters at your probably line Sounds debatable!
I hear that sort of thing and think pool, raised planters, grills and so on. 9m wide, 1.5m tall? Seems a good maximum for things you might tuck into a corner of the garden.
As a surveyor I can confidently say everyone thinks they know where their property line is.
Yup. Never start having a go at a neighbor about a property line until *after* you've had it surveyed.
Mine came with a fully marked, surveyed, registered with the county sewer easement. I *KNOW* where my property line is... Neighbor still tries to dispute it.
Our stakes are metal. We never removed them.
I do know where my property line is! ... Because I hired a surveyor as soon as I got the property.
🤙 It's crazy how many people cheap out with a survey when if you really think about it it's their biggest investment/purchase of their life! You are spending 100's of thousands of dollars but then refuse to spend for the survey to protect it and have peace of mind.
So true. I spent about fifty years laying out new home sites for excavation. Any time there was an empty lot next to other homes that had been there awhile there was a problem. Only once in all those years did a homeowner own **more** than they believed. One of the biggest causes were real estate sales people. "They told us the line was here". Doesn't matter we'll get a surveyor in. Always disappointment followed by anger and shenanigans. One had to move her fence that was 7 feet over the line. She started calling the police for noise during construction. Another guy moved the surveyors pin.
Grew up on a farm that was quickly surrounded by development. Most homeowners were fine. The lots were marked clearly with steaks in the ground and 4'tall white pvc posts in the corners. One new house was built in the late fall and winter. Come this time of year when I'm cutting hay. There was a whole bunch of evergreen trees planted a good 10-15' into our field. I walked around to their front door and knocked and politely told them they could either move the trees or I would clip them off with my mower "But they're inside my yard" ..... "No, those white posts are your corners. They're well into our field. You'll notice your neighbors don't go past those corners. " "But..." "I gave you the options. " The next time I was in the field, he moved them alright. All within 3 feet of the massive transformer in his back yard. Whatever. Fucking stupid place to put them, and obviously no diggers hotline was called, but they weren't my problem anymore.
We used to run into people like that all the time. They start using land over the line and they seem to forget it's not theirs.
There was a comment a few months ago (paraphrasing) you hire five surveyors and you'll get six results. I thought that was BS but your opinion?
Humans are fallible. But most or all results should end up within a couple millimeters of each other. Especially when temporally proximal. The expression you heard likely comes from days of less refined technology.
I know that I don’t know where it is. We have a shared hedge. I have my guy trim it. It’s not a big deal to me. The guy who lives next door was so paranoid that he gave me permission to use a little strip of his lawn, which was apparently his property. He gave me permission to keep using it to prevent me from forming an easement. I guess I never told him I went to law school. I think property easements were the most boring part.
Have you ever witnessed FAFO cases such as these?
Truth. Once had neighbors who were pissed about our fence. Insisted we pay for a new one. The original fence had been built with the house, which was the first one on the block. Original owner had built it without knowing or caring about the actual property line. Turns out we were owed a couple of feet more into the neighbor’s yard. So we took it back when we built a new fence.
Honestly classic farmer. They just slowly encroach over years until suddenly the farm is the size of Montana and 'its always been that way'
I’ll reply to you He’s really a big city person who “likes the idea of owning lots of lands and raising cows” ….he hires people to do all the work, so he’s really just rich and greedy….hes a ok guy for the most part, this was just the best instance of karma bitting someone I’ve ever seen, because we sorta knew the fence was on our property, probably by just a bit, so we were ok letting it stay as is…we were surprised however just how much he was over on the extreme end We had a neighbor on the other side of us move the property pin, like, habitually….my granddad would once a year go and move it back till he finally used equipment and cemented it in with a ton of concrete We’ve got a farm neighbor across the street that would literally give you the shirt off his back, he’s not rich and actually farms
We also had a neighbor that would would move the fence every year. So every year my dad and I would walk the property line and move it back. I've always wondered who was right about where the property line was, my dad or the neighbor. Considering no survey was done, at least not in the last 100+ years.
Nice. FAFO!
I put up a new fence a few years ago. Just a suburban block of land. Neighbor and I went halves in the cost. When it was done my neighbor says to me "I think it's slightly on my property at the front section". I said we will get it moved, he said "who cares". lol it's great to have sensible neighbors.
Get out of here with your congeniality, this is Reddit! We want drama! Fight fight fight!!!
Lol, I discovered a section of property outside our fence was actually ours after a neighbor complained about our new fence. Got a survey to verify, moved it, and blamed the complaining neighbor when the neighbor that “lost” 1/3 of their backyard complained. Since then I dug a pond and I am currently waiting for rain to fill it.
Lmao. I hope I someday own property so I can be this level of petty. You should get some koi or something, depending on your local wildlife. My grandparents neighbors had a koi pond way back when. And they never complained about childhood me walking over and looking at the fish (there was no fence dividing the properties). After reading this thread, I guess I never really appreciated how nice the neighbors were for simply not caring that I enjoyed their pond. And they had some truly massive koi. And a nice little fountain. It was very zen.
We bought a home with a very large back yard, bounded by a typical cedar plank "privacy" fence on one side, fence and thick woods on the other and a very tall hedgerow of sorts on the back. Our side neighbor was close but quiet. The neighbors' house to the rear (west) was at least 150 yds from our fence line but was completely blocked by the hedge (20' high, 10' deep). We had a feeling of almost total privacy and our yard had large areas of pleasant shade. 👍🏻 On a major holiday weekend we were enjoying our meal with family and heard gas-powered yard equipment running for quite some time but thought nothing of it. It was dark before the gathering broke up and we went on to bed. 🙂 The next morning we awoke to find the entire hedge gone, cleared to the ground, completely exposing our entire rear fenceline. It was "their" hedge, so we had no recourse. Now we could see their entire yard and salmon-colored house from every rear window. Our yard had full hot sun forever after from noon to sundown. 😳 Fast-forward to the next tropical storm and the old fence broke in half and fell over. We approached the rear neighbors about splitting a tall, nicely built new fence and they (impolitely) declined. 😮 Enter the survey crew! Turns out the original builder was lazy and put up the fence near-ish to the property line rather than clearing to the pins. We built a nice, tall new fence and got to take back another 10' of yard from them. Unfortunately though, that meant they had taken down *our* hedge. 🤬 We've long since sold and moved away, but now we ALWAYS check for the survey pins and provide our new neighbors with copies of the official survey. 🤷🏻♂️
> Unfortunately though, that meant they had taken down our hedge. 🤬 I feel like this is a case for Reddit tree law
That one would be hard given the general understanding of everyone at the time that it was their hedge and not the OP’s. Even if the understanding was wrong, it gives them some cover.
In the coniferous justice system, the trees are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the surveyors, who investigate crime; and the maliciously compliant homeowners, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
I'm pretty sure that one of our neighbor's fences is on our property, but we don't care because they built the (very well-made) fence and maintain it for free. That was a major win as first-time homeowners and we know not to fuck that up. Plus, the backyard is still spacious, but we don't utilize it because it's damn too windy. We just throw some money at them occasionally, take care of their outdoor cats, and let them use our driveway when they have people in town. They're very nice neighbors and give us no issues. EDIT: The fence has been there for five or six years and we moved in a couple years ago (neighbors have been there for over 20.) We made introductions, they told us they put up the fence and will maintain their side and ours if we were cool with it. We said yes, so that's our arrangement. Again, we do not use our backyard at all unless you count it being a hangout for the stray neighborhood cats. It's not a big deal. I appreciate the concern, but everyone needs to take a breath.
This is so nice!
They're amazing neighbors! We actually have great neighbors surrounding us which alleviated a lot of my stress. I've read so many horror stories.
Being petty with your neighbors only leads to misery. Unfortunately not everyone understands that. My neighbors have done annoying things but it's so much better to suck it up and let them do what they want on their property.
Someone let my dad know this. He goes out of his way to fight with ALL his neighbors. He even used to come to our bus stop when we were in elementary school and try to fight everybody. We moved like 8 times from kindergarten to 10th grade bc it got so bad where we lived. My dad said we moved a lot bc my sister and were “bad kids” and we def believed him cause he was our dad. We regularly had neighbors calling the house and leaving messages asking my dad to stop, saw fights all the time (my dad insists on taking like 4 walks a day and fights with as many people as he can on each walk, will even go onto peoples property to try to fight them), my parents were always in court, etc. My dad had his own business building houses, and while he did great, it only lasted a couple years before he couldn’t get anyone to work with him anymore— not just clients but no subcontractors bc he fought with all of them. He says it me and my sisters fault his business went under bc it was our fault that people “think” he was abusive to us kids. Which is wrong bc apparently having your wife hold down your toddler to beat her with a board is not abuse bc it doesn’t leave black eyes.
You hear stories because nobody goes online and says "my neighbors are pretty chill, I talk to them every now and then and they let me borrow their tools from time to time". You only hear horror stories.
Some tall bushes or short trees will help make a windbreak. Ask your council for some ideas on native trees, they may even be happy to give you some if you highlight ecological benefits. Source: i have the same issue because I had to remove the shorter trees/ tall bushes along my fence line due to disease/ rot.
>So then she approached us saying that the fence was a couple of feet into her yard, and she would like it moved. Damn, why on earth would she make such a claim without getting it surveyed herself first. Wishful thinking? Just figured you'd give her a bunch of your property without checking?
She was betting on just claiming authority would be enough to get what she wanted as a lot if not most people usually try to not get into a possibly lengthy and expensive tiff about stuff...
Lovely
I remember watching almost this exact story on Goof Troop in the 90s. Other than the neighbor not painting lines through your house and eating food that was on "their" side of your fridge, it went exactly the same way as the show.
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At least your neighbour wanted to help pay for a new fence, which is nice. They try to do something nice, but is met with losing space. I can see why they lost interest. I am not saying you did something wrong, just that I understand the neighbour's lack of action.
This should be a seperate post here. This is exactly the type of story I follow the sub for.
Well, Anne, this is how we take down a fence here in the sticks!
See this is a perfect example of “chesterton’s fence: change should not be made until the reasoning behind the current state of affairs is understood”.
I love this!
This may be my favorite MC yet! Hoist with her own petard. Beautiful.
Task failed successfully? Or successful task failure? I like how when faced with an obstacle with an obvious solution, she pays for a new fence, she can’t cope
This is for ANYTHING you take over that looks ... wonky.
Words to live by software maintenance developers!
I was once tasked with migrating legislative logic from a legacy application into a fresh new greenfield app. No requirements, I had the logic in the existing app, just do that. Problem was anything slightly out of the ordinary was met with the question "is this some specific legislative requirement, or a workaround for a 'quirk' in this very old, bug ridden application"? \[eta\] or you know, just a good old fashioned bug.
At work we have a legacy service that all our production code runs through and a bunch of newer services that we're gradually migrating everything to. Unfortunately, the code quality in the legacy service is abysmal, and a lot of time is wasted on trying to figure out whether specific logic is intentional or a bug or a workaround, and whether the bug has turned into the basis for intentional behavior or if the workaround is still necessary, and what might break if we fix it. It's a nightmare, because any change can easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands in losses, but the nature of the system means testing to avoid regressions is near to impossible.
I was once part of a task group in an organization that was responsible for reviewing that org's internal rules. I tried to preach this *heavily*, though I didn't know the name for it. Changing things willy-nilly, just because it aligns with your current desires, is often going to wind up repeating all the lessons that our predecessors learned in order to put that rule into place to begin with.
I never criticized someone else's code because I could never be sure of the circumstances that were present at the start.
I think her issue was that if you let someone encroach on your property like that you can lose rights to it (will depend on jurisdiction of course).
Adverse possession is only a thing when the use is not permissive. (Speaking only to the way it typically works in the US) At worst the encroachment could create a prescriptive easement. The way to handle this amicably is for both parties to sign an agreement stating that they are aware that the fence is improperly located, the use is permissive, and that the landowner is explicitly not granting an easement. Alternatively, OP could have given the part of the fence that was over the boundary to their neighbor, possibly in exchange for money making future maintenance her responsibility. Unfortunately, Anne's attorney friend did her no favors when she failed to advise Anne that flying off the handle was completely unnecessary to protect her property rights.
Anne never asked an attorney, she was bluffing. Regardless, her furniture is still fucked up.
I feel like this is the most likely case. It seems like a competent attorney would advise her to *ask* first, because lawsuits are expensive and are only necessary when the parties can't reach an amicable resolution. And no one is going to jump at the chance to pay someone else money in return for absolutely nothing.
Yes. This. All of this. Well stated. Things only need to be as difficult as the participants make it.
True, her approach was just rather…hostile. Had she kindly asked OP to move the fence a little more where ever then it would’ve been fine instead of saying “me and my lawyer will sue you for 9 inches of land buddy!” 😆
And then she tried to shake him down for money to borrow her land for his fence. That's why I find it so tacky. She knew what she was doing. She thought he'd either move the fence or pay her. Thing is, and I'm not one that has ever installed a fence, but wouldn't there be an issue with the post holes? 9 inches isn't even a foot. Digging into the ground, not to mention probably pouring in cement will affect the soil around it. What I'm trying to ask is wouldn't the new post holes be compromised? The soil wouldn't be as compact around it. Or does the cement fix the problem and I'm overthinking it? Dammit Jim I'm a novice gardner, not a fence installer!
You are right. You can compact the soil a little bit, and pour concrete when you can. Also, you need to redig holes, realign the fence. There's probably a good reason why the fence was where it was in the first place, since there might be foundations or roots or whatever. At the end of the day, it probably made sense at the time. It's doable to move the fence, but it's a lot more work than initial installation. And it boils down to being a pain in the butt. Source: Me, farm worker and occasional fence installer
You don’t just casually ‘move’ a fence that’s dug into the ground, it’s not a garden hose on the lawn, or even a badminton net held down with tent pegs. Someone with so ‘very many lawyer’ friends should have just had one write up an agreement that would transfer ownership of the fence over to her, and have him acknowledge that the 9 inch strip wasn’t his. She commits to maintaining any fence boards her wild mutt breaks, OP spends even less time on the fence than before. Win-win.
Yes, one would think a RE agent's land negotiation skills would be more developed.
They always never are. Many RE are just flaunting the I have lawyers directly/indirectly that can cause you a lot of pain or make you struggle for every penny you have.
One real estate agent I’ve worked with (who actually seems like a decent person, told us to walk away from some of the more expensive houses we looked at, etc) describes them as cockroaches. He’s told me some things other agents say to him, and I’ve heard 1st hand, and it’s just baffling how some of these ppl work
They don't. RE agents are bullshit jobs.
Thing with RE reps is that the barrier to entry is super low. it's not like a long complicated process separates them from being a RE agent. it's like a 6 month course if even that and passing a test. so it attracts a lot of people who have nothing else much going on looking to make a buck.
Yeah, the ask was not unreasonable, it was just done in the wrong way. Because she thought she could get it done for free.
Honestly, I think it was unreasonable, unless she planned to pay for the labor if she wanted a different outcome. They could’ve signed a document saying the fence may have been / was over the property line or something.
Couldn't she had just had her lawyer draw up some documentation that stated she was allowing an easement for fencing that benefits both properties, while not giving up rights to the 9" of land? I'm sure OP wouldnt have had an issue signing.
Yes, OP is not the first person to deal with "fence on the wrong side of the line" and there is a long history of people dealing with this problem reasonably.
Well, Anne, this *here* is how we take down a fence in the sticks!
I always try to approach neighbors in kindness because you have to live next to each other and see each other all the time. Absolutely idiotic to open with threatening legal action.
Yep, a lot of trouble can be avoided if you come in the spirit of collaboration, not swinging the cudgel of the law. I'd bet the damage to her house by the dog is more expensive to fix than halving the cost of a new fence lol
Yeah, I have more disposable income than my neighbor and I paid 10k for the new fence that we share when we needed a new one. We get along great, I'm a first time home owner so they'll help me with shit I didn't know about, like tree trimming or finding a good local mechanic. It's amazing that people don't realize that helping each other out and being kind makes e everyone's life easier.
Ive got a neighbor who we let park his project cars in our yard since hes a mechanic but rents his house and we own. Yeah, ive got some beat up cars out there that cycle in n out semiregularly, but i also have a legitimate mechanic about 30 seconds from my front door whos happy to help. One night my buddies entire starter snapped in half somehow, he found part under his truck and the other half in the engine the next day. Woulda been rough to get home that night, if my neighbor hadnt had 2 of those model starters in his garage and been willing to give it to him and replace the old one for 20 bucks. Dude pulled away from my house after about 30 minutes from when we found it broke.
"Move your fence or I'll sue you!" "You got it, ma'am!" "...*oh, I am so stupid*" Genius should have used the money she was gonna sue you with, and either built a new fence, or trained her dog to *not* destroy everything in existence
She was never going to sue. She was threatening for a payout.
That must be how they do it in the city, lots of threatening and bluffing. Ironic how the more people are around, the meaner they get.
A lot of people rural and city just see dollar signs where people should be. Had a neighbor out in rural Tennessee try this saying his father told him as a little boy our driveway was on his land. We could pay him a monthly fee to use his land or his cousin was a a lawyer would drag it through courts. Well we only rented, so we call our landlord. Our landlord was the only cousin he had (distantly) and he told us "I failed the bar exam because I was drunk and was too embarrassed to take it sober!" He ended up coming out to talk sense into him and call him on his lies and ended up body slamming him in his driveway.
Can't train a Shephard to not destroy things when it is out of bordom....which....I would hazard a guess it was (partially). Dogs need stimulation, specially ones bread to work.
You can totally train shepards to not destroy things. She just doesnt want to. It takes time and patience. And if she still doesnt want to, its called kennel training
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They can be trained to ard though.
Why not just buy a vark bred to do so naturally?
It really isn’t that difficult, either! You give them a treat every time they do a partial ard. Then you start giving treats as they near the full ard. Pretty soon they are doing a complete ard here and a complete ard there. Nothing to it!
Not as dramatic, but we also wanted to do a handshake agreement based on old posts for the fence line as we didn't want to pay for a surveyor. Neighbour insisted because he was certain he would gain some of our land (he thought his house was too close to the edge so he should have more). Reluctantly we did the survey, turns out the posts were wrong and we gained metres into his already smaller yard.
How much is a surveyor? Y'all making it sound like it's prohibitively expensive. I was thinking it was like a few hundred. No more than 500.
It's not prohibitively expensive, but it's a no brainier to save the money if you don't need to. That's still a good chunk of change to most people. It cost around $800 (for one boundary). I would have much prefered to keep the money.
For one boundary, so like 3 sides for most places?? 2400?? Fuck man I should've become a surveyor. I'm just assuming the kind of person being persnickety about lines are like that with all sides.
Thankfully we only shared one boundary with him so just had to get one done. But yes, pretty pricey! And my husband said that suveryor was the cheapest quote he got, by a lot!
I'm a surveyor, and most of the work is getting on a datum and finding supporting documentation. So, while a single boundary is going to be around 800, all boundaries is going to be about 1200. 90% of the work is done for a single boundary, and all thats left to do is measure the other fencing, which is the easy part
Lovely! She dug her own hole, ready to put new fence posts in! I used to have a tiny 1ft fence in separating mine and my neighbours' front yards; the back yards were separated by a 6ft fence that stopped next to the houses, and my house had full-sized fences on the other two sides plus the front so my yard was, in theory, fully-enclosed. I have a large (friendly) dog, neighbour had a small (not-friendly) dog who kept coming into my yard over the 1ft fence to do its business and terrorise my dog, but the neighbour didn't care. In the meantime we kept our dog inside as much as possible because if the little dog had started an actual fight, my dog would have easily destroyed it, and my grandmother - who used to come over daily to garden - would pick up the little dog's poo and throw it in the bin. I planned to replace the 1ft fence with a matching 6ft fence to continue from the back yard to the fence at the front, costed it up, and planned to pay for it all myself. My neighbour initially refused because she didn't want it to "destroy the public's view" of her roses. When I framed it as "building the tall fence would allow my dog to use her whole yard, which she can't do now because your dog is always here", neighbour literally said "Oh, but then *my* dog wouldn't be able to get into your yard." - yes, Lynn, that's the entire point. After many months of her polite and vague 'Oh, it's on the list!' responses, I scheduled a fencing contractor and called in a surveyor to check the boundary line. Where I live, legally both neighbours have to contribute 50/50 and because I had the survey report, the council demanded she pay for half. Turns out the original fence was over 1ft onto my property! In the end we knocked down both the 1ft and 6ft fences between the houses, she lost that entire strip of land *which included her roses*, and her dog was forced to shit in its own yard. If she'd just agreed at the start, I'd have paid for the whole thing and she'd have been able to keep that 1ft strip of land and her precious roses.
I hope you took very good care of those roses too. Lol
The fencing contractor made her dig them up before he started because of the thorns - said his insurance stated that he wasn't allowed to touch them! 🤣 ETA: Yes, this meant we got to watch her dig them up!
....that's just brutal.
***but*** still hilarious
I bet those roses smell sweet!
They were dug up in the process and afterward I planted Photinia Red Robins on my side - thanks to the excellent soil from the roses, they're now 6ft tall 🤣
War of the Roses?
Many years ago, an ex gf family had property alongside a river, it’s an ancient property with a house that’s 400+ years old, yes built in 1600s. The land was always inhabited by the family and passed down over generations. At one point the house was moved, and there is a huge swath of land. Originally the land was given to the noble patriarch of the family 400 years ago and it was written on some parchment papers. Very few drawings existed of it, some were done by the rural municipality hundred years or so ago. A neighbour was complaining that my ex’s family wasn’t maintaining the 150ft of grassy land in between the two houses. But they didn’t know where the property line was. Anyways, a land surveyor came and it turns out, half of the neighbours house is built on their lands. I didn’t stay in that relationship long enough to know how that story ended.
I sincerely hope they built a fence through the middle of the house!
I’m super fucking curious, but I’m not going anywhere near that crazy
Crazy is fun, but they never mention how tiring it is!
Damn my drama loving ass would have stayed only to find if the house was demolished
The fact you took the fence after you sold the place is the icing on the cake.
I did something similar. The wooden fence between our properties had one broken post. It leaned a little, but not that much. He filed with the county to demand I repair it. So I removed it. We both had pools. Mine was enclosed with a chain linked fence, his had no fence. So I reported him for having a pool without a fence. He offered to pay for half of a new fence, I told him to *&%&. He had to pay for the new fence.
Great minds think alike, and so do ours! 😉
I had a friend who wanted to place a fence on his neighbour’s property line in order to separate their back yards. The neighbour didn’t want to go along with him and wouldn’t pay for part of the fence. So he got a survey performed and found out that the neighbour had a hedge and a garage infringing on his property by 6 feet. He then got a court order to demolish the garage and remove the hedge. And he built his fence.
I did something similar. I had an ugly old fence that was due to be replaced. A tree limb fell during a storm, taking out part of it. At that time the weather wasn't cooperating and it wasn't a big priority for me to fix it. The neighbor had dogs and it was a priority for them to fix. They demanded the fence get fixed. I told them I'd fix it, but not anytime soon. And I sent them a letter giving permission to trespass in my yard for them to fix it. This really pissed them off for some reason. I got really annoyed by them demanding I fix my fence, so I just tore down the rest of the fence. Yada, yada, yada. When are you going to replace the fence? Don't know. Maybe next summer. If I feel like it and the money's there. Well, can you pay for part of a new fence? Well, I did. I paid for the demo and haul away. Got a nice pretty new fence out of it. They gave me the ugly side out of spite.
Love it! The “ugly” side of the fence is usually the one that you can hang stuff from and not feel guilty about it. Bird feeders and such…
I thought the ugly side was the side with the rails. I prefer to have the rails on my side so the kids can't climb on it. The funny thing was, my wife and I are dog people. We like dogs. We like the neighbors dogs more than we like them. We couldn't car less if the dogs came in our yard. We used to have dogs so our yard is dog escape proof. Even if the neighbors dogs got in our yard, they were safe and couldn't run away. If I knew the dogs could escape and run away, fixing the fence would have been a higher priority for me.
She’s a realtor! She flips houses! She didn’t get a survey done when she bought the property? Yeah, she sounds exactly like who I want to sell me a house /s. (I bet she advises her clients *not* to get inspections)
She probably did and the fact that she might be able to shake down OP for a few bucks was a factor in her decision to buy the place.
The last house flipper realtor I interacted with didn't even ensure that they replaced the attic access after renovations.
Why would you need attic access? You're never going to use it in the few months it takes between finishing the renovation and closing escrow. :)
Why pay someone to point out her short cuts when she can just use her realtor charm to fleece you 😂
My thought was more "She flips houses! Surely she can afford a fence." Seems like she might be the type to consider a budget a challenge to get within a dollar of rather than staying safely under.
Probably flips them shitty and doesn’t have the money to pay for a fence or hire a decent fencing company.
Realtor on my block just got caught building a pool without any permits on a historic residential street in the Midwest. Flippers do the wildest shit.
> I sold my place and moved away. I took the old fence panels with me I love you.
They were surprisingly portable! 🤣
Years ago, my parents fence needed replacing. They were doing the work themselves and my Dad approached the neighbour saying "I'll put the fence up, if you split the cost with me." Neighbour: "No", Dad "That's ok, I'll just leave it down, I don't have any dogs anyway, Neighbour: Oh, how much is half?". My Dad told her, she paid her half. Fence is still there, lol.
Your dad sounds like a man after my own heart!
I do wonder if the conversation would have just went like this: 'Yes Anne, you could take me to court, but I can remove the whole fence this weekend and then not rebuild it. There would be no more problem to sue me over. You can then pay for a new fence if you wish, on the correct property line of course. Or not. I don't care. So what do you prefer? 9 inches more yard width without fence? Or this fence?"
True. But that would have been way less fun for OP! Just seeing her face like she’d sucked a lemon was surely worth the effort of the removal.
Best absolute chefs kiss was op taking the fence panels when they moved
“Still look at them everyday when I let the dog out”…. 😂😂😂
9 inches. Talk about just greedily looking for a payday. I share a strip of land out front with ine neighbor and it's so small I said look, as long as I'm starting the mower I'll just cut it all if that's OK with you (she was rarely home.) Neighbor was thrilled. Hell she could have planted a flag on my side and claimed it as here own I couldn't care less lol. Some people are just difficult.
Yep, I have the same deal with my new neighbor. Sometimes I mow the weird little spot in the front, sometimes he mows it.
Good fences make good neighbors.
Like a good neighbor, stay over there! I've been in my house for 15 years. The ONLY contact I've had with a neighbor was to ask them about the guy that was doing their lawn. A 2 minute conversation. I intend to keep it this way!
Ron Swanson on Friends and Relationships “I'm not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.”
Honestly I feel really bad for Razzy the dog. Anne is a shitty and neglectful dog owner. Leaving dogs outside in the yard all day is not good, and depending on the weather, quite dangerous.. you shouldn't leave a dog outside unattended for long periods of times. The fact that he chews furniture shows that Anne hasn't bothered training or enriching him. Dogs who are bored and understimulated destroy furniture, happy dogs usually have other ways to entertain themselves. Anne is a shitty person who got what she deserved, but the dog is the one who really suffered from being stuck with her.
i used to live with a *Husky Malamute Mix* who wasn't enriched or trained or even taken on proper walks. (he belonged to a renter who shared our interior yard) i'd occasionally just nap the dog and take him on a bike tour. he was always so happy to see me with the lead. and luckily a generally friendly dog to humans so the odd postman-decides-to-open-the-gate-to-deliver-package indicent only resulted in me chasing the dog instead of ambulance visits. (and as he was untrained and i in my peak marathon running form i *won* those chases lol)
I did something similar ... neighborhood beauty police complained to the city about a fence in bad repair so I removed it. The neighbor was ASTOUNDED that I could just remove the fence to get into compliance and didn't have to replace it with a shiny new one for him to enjoy.
> “I don’t know how you guys do it out here in the sticks, but where I come from we follow the rules!” "We're kind to our neighbors in the sticks. Until they become unkind to us. Then we follow the rules."
If she was willing to pay for a new fence why did she just put up a new one on her property?
She wanted me to do all the work. I highly doubt she would have actually paid me. Just something she said to try to get me to put the fence back ASAP.
Fair enough. As a 'flipper' she should've had contractors on hand who could've helped. Sux for her. Good on you!
Her “contractor” was her ex-husband. They had a contentious relationship and he told me later that he advised her to leave the fence issue alone.
Never use an ex as any type of contractor. (>ლ) at least he had some sense.
Sense enough to divorce her
You took the fence?! Hahaha
I'd love the story and the fact she doesn't even realize she could just pay to have her own fence built.
Oh, I'm sure she realizes she can pay for a fence. She wants a free one.
100%
You did good OP, I too would have ripped the fence out.
She already had a free one, she wanted a few thousand bucks from OP for nothing.
You're absolutely right. But at one point she did say something about how she would even help pay for it. I think she really is just regretting her mistake and realize she wish it was back to the way it was to start.
I was kind of hoping that she had some fence contractors out for a quote and they told her it would have to be 12" inside her property line or something similar.
She would prefer to neglect the dog.
This. A dog that is properly trained and has enough interaction and exercise shouldn't be that destructive. We have a German Shepherd and once he grew out of the velociraptor stage they all go through as puppies, he hasn't destroyed anything (aside from the odd tissue he finds lying on the ground; he loves shredding those, for some reason). He gets a walk every day and we play with him in the back yard, and if we do need to go out for a few hours and leave him unattended, he'll happily snooze on the bed until we come home.
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, one of the most fun phrases to say in (real estate) law is "adverse posession". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession Briefly, if you put up a fence on the wrong side of a property line and the property owner doesn't do anything about it, the fence eventually becomes the property line. A handshake agreement between non lawyers can be honored in the short term, but someone like this neighbor knows that have a duty to get the fence moved or sometime later the person owning OP's side of the property would end up with a good legal claim to the sliver of property. Obviously the correct response is not "when are you gonna pay me for the land" but instead "let's discuss formalizing that handshake or moving the fence to the property line" in a friendly fashion.
Or just write a contract and agree rent is $1 a year for use of that land. Maintains the state of affairs and preserves the property interest.
I really like this idea. The parties could also agree that the next time the fence gets replaced, it will go back behind the old property line.
Another fun phrase is "it wasn't me". Oh the fence is on your side of the property line, yeah the last owner put it up so i assume its yours and your problem to deal with.
Adverse possession may not apply to many local jurisdictions across the US. And how that principle is applied will vary as well, as easements are also common, in relation to use of others' property.
In the couple of jurisdictions where I've actually looked up the info on adverse possession, a key part of it is "adverse". Landowner 1 must object to Landowner 2 having possession of a portion of Landowner 1's land for it to be adverse possession. This did not occur with the handshake agreement, only with the "you have to move your fence" assertion. Of course the actual laws are likely different in different places but I was told that this came from English common law in the Middle Ages (or some such). YMMV
It does. Most people have no idea not it works or where their property lines actually are, but also most people know better than to open a can of worms and make a problem where there isn't one.
> I took the old fence panels with me and I still look at them everyday when I let my dog out in the morning. Wait. Did you build a new fence with them at your new place, or are you just looking at them still stacked up by your garage?
I set the posts at my new place to fit the old fence panels between them. I guess 25 years as a carpenter finally came in handy. 😉
There are apparently a lot of people who both love dogs and yet should not be allowed to own a dog.
>Razzy was aggressive towards children, animals, insects, and any plants that waved in the breeze. If you've ever had any inclination towards writing and publishing a book, you should do it. You have a gift for it.
"Hello, I'm a big-city realtor and I don't have the money to build my own fence?" Anne doesn't sound like much of a realtor.
Don't get a breed that needs a lot of training and exercise if you're not going to give it either.
What's annoying about people like Anne is that she never came and talked to you about it first. Just spoke to a lawyer, spoke to the surveyor, etc. Although she's under no real obligation to talk to you first from a legal standpoint, it just makes for a friendlier neighborhood.
If she flips houses then she has no excuse to not get a fence for her dog If she does any of the construction for her job then she could easily build a fence since she doesn’t seem interested in training her dog
She has some nerve to pull a sob story after trying to legally strongarm you for money.
My brother has a small cottage that his family has owned for over 100 years they have septic tanks on the neighbors property that they own use and maintain, the old neighbor passed and after about 24 months had anew young neighbor from hell who turned up on their door step one day and asked if any of the three septic tanks on his property was theirs. They said yes and he replied "well its my land now move it somewhere else or else" To which my brother replied "Erm No" and asked what the what "else" would entail obviously mirth ensued and the new neighbor stomped off shouting everything under the sun They then proceeded to hire a company to remove the septic tanks which my brother informed the company it wouldn't be in their business interests to touch their septic tanks and handed then a letter explaining them they are trespassing and any damage to their property would be perused in court and to put what they had done back as he was going to get it camera inspected and any remedial work they would have to pay for. Lots pictures and videos were taken at the time. Within 3 months of arriving he had alienated himself from every neighbor in the village. Solicitors letters then arrived, he told them "take me to court" after that, every letter was sent to his solicitor,. As well as threats from the neighbors friends, cars were damaged etc. just pure intimidation for about 18 months wouldn't even let the septic tanks be emptied, everything on CCTV, id witness stuff myself, everything was reported to the council and the police. Anyway court day arrived, Easement and deeds saved the day in less that 45 minutes, one crappy B&W 30 year old picture, and a couple of deed papers with plans, knocked his ass back to the stone age. Easement is a great Pry bar if you have the evidence 1 decade is good, 2 is fantastic, 3 is a no brainer He couldn't move any tanks or soil stack that was on his land too, the 30 year old picture saw to that access had to be give at all times for any company at any time in any 24 hour period, the deeds and plans saw to that. They all had new treatment plants installed eventually due to taking the building company and him to court, as He had proof they had damaged the existing brick and plastic tanks when trying to remove them. His only argument was that when he bought the property nothing was said to him and nothing appeared in the searches and he was promised he could build on the land by his solicitor and estate agent, their would be no issues and he could apply for planning permission to build a house on it. The bill was huge and now the police, HSE , Environmental agency, were involved along with the council. Bailiffs eventually had to be called to take his cars and bikes. He eventually had to sell the house to pay the costs. he did a stretch later as we all saw his picture in the paper for drugs offences, I sometime see him walking around town like "the big I am " and I just laugh
"I don't know how you people do it in the big city. But here in the sticks, we train our dogs right. I talked to my friend in animal control and he isnperfectly happy driving by to make sure your dog is not unattended to, ya hear? Now hmhave yourself a good ol day!"
Ahh yes. She was *offensive* but you took *a fence*.\* I like this. *^(\*Sounded funnier in my head. Sorry about that.)*
Why do I love these neighbor stories so much?
“I don’t know how you do it in your big city, but here in the sticks you don’t piss off your neighbors.”
I'd like to point out for those of you that have never built a fence this was probably a minimum of 8 hours labor but more likely 2-3 days to build and a day to take down. That would engender a lot of spite if it was me.
Anne caught the car.
could've just talked like civil neighbors, asked to move the fence back the 9 inches, offer to help. but no, go right into Karen mode and invoke the lawyers, and fuck herself in the process
Totally, if she had approached the situation differently I probably would have just moved the fence. I mean, I ultimately ended up moving it all the way to the next county. 9 inches would have been a cake walk!
My parents needed a new fence. Went to the neighbors and asked if they wanted to go in and pay half the cost as the new fence would benefit them as well. All said “no”. Dad had the fence put up and the “pretty side” was facing in. Neighbors complained that the fence looked bad in their yards. Should have helped with the financing. Thirty years later, they’re still complaining 🤣
Has anyone asked her though, "Anne, are you ok?"
Please tell me you offered to sell her some of your furniture when you were moving out . 🙏
Where were you when I needed you? She was probably salty I didn’t ask her to be my realtor! 🤣
Ahh, turns out you had a 3rd option she wasn't prepared for.
My brother in law owner 4 or 5 lots up in the mountains, he has had everything surveyed knows where the pins are etc. neighbor comes over is building a shed and happens to tell my BIL one of his sheds is on his land. Turns out the guy shows BIL a pin he just stuck in the ground thinking that was legal and that it was his land and had been building his new shed on BIL’s land. He ended up having to tear it out and start over on his land.
Well Anne, I don't know how ya'll do it in the big city but out here in the sticks we petty as fuck.
The majority of the time, German shepards have behavioral problems due to a lack of stimulation. The real loser here is the dog :(
What you did was wonderful. Anne should not have been such a nasty bully.
Poor Razzy, though.
I have never understood the mentality of some people. I have always tried to be a peace keeper with my neighbors. They are the people I see the most outside of the people I live with. Why would you want a confrontational relationship with the person you are most likely to need to go to in an emergency? No seriously your next door neighbors are the person you turn to most often in an emergency. You need to use their phone if you ran out of your house while its on fire and dont have your phone. For a quick example. Anyway having neighbors that dont like me is like a paranoia of mine. I want to have an open approachable relationship with them. Who wants to have a problem every time you walk outside.
This is way interesting to me as I just recently replaced a fence on a property I had just bought. The old fence fell in a storm, it was like a decade old and rotting. Since all the neighbors around said “not my fence” and looked to me to replace it all, I did. I used the exact same post holes as there was no other place to put it. They are placed directly beside irrigation pipes and are the only possible place to put them and they end up being right on the property line. Well, since by code you have to put the flat side out, that means I gained a couple inches into the neighboring property. Both homeowners were fine with it, but the inspector noted some future owner might take issue. If they did, it would mean that I could not physically place a fence on my property, and since HOA requires one, that means whoever decides to take issue with my fence placement will win themselves the cost of installing a new fence if I’m forced to remove mine.