When I was living in Chicago my property line ran between the walkway to my back yard and the one leading to my neighbor’s front steps. This meant that there was a patch of grass which was partly on my property and partly on my neighbor’s. When I bought the house my neighbor generally mowed this (actually I think his son would visit and do it) when he did his own grass. When the house was sold my new neighbor started making a big fuss over who was responsible for mowing which part of this grass. He would mow “his” portion of it, and then complain if I didn’t mow mine at the same time so the grass was the same length. He was a bit of an asshole in other ways, too. At one point he claimed that if he started mowing “my” part of the grass that gave him an easement which would make it his property. Note that we’re talking about a patch of grass that was maybe 5’ by 10’ and therefor totally useless for any sort of construction.
When our next-door neighbors moved out because the house was about to be foreclosed by the bank, the lawn grew out of control. I filed a complaint with the city, and when the inspector came to have a looksee I spoke with him. He said that they would send a letter to the homeowners (who had moved to another part of town), but until 30 days passed, probably nothing would happen to the lawn. I asked him if I could mow it, and he answered in the affirmative. So the neighbor on the other side and I mowed the lawn a couple of times before the foreclosure was filed and the bank hired a service to mow it. Took a total of about 2 hours of my time.
Yeah, many place require that you shovel the (town-owned) sidewalk. Some probably require you mow the town-owned grass. My town happens not to require lawn maintenance (at all) nor sidewalk clearing.
My dream home has gravel instead of grass for a lawn.
These are both the case where I live.
Where I live, we’re also responsible for repairs to broken sidewalks between the house and the parking strip.
So, the factual answer to the op’s question is almost certainly, “it varies by jurisdiction”
Gravel is great for parking, room for at least 4-6 vehicles in the front yard.
Our houses are so close together here in the greater Boston area that you feel like you could lie down and have your head and feet touch two different houses at the same time. My neighbors’ have a strip on the side of the house adjacent to mine that’s like two passes of a lawnmower wide. To get to it, they’d have to come through my driveway. And if they mowed it and my car wasn’t as close to my house as possible, they’d be in real danger of damaging my car. So I just take the 2 minutes and two passes to mow theirs when I do mine. I don’t edge it or weed it, as I don’t want to clip the cable or something, but at least I can save them the motorized effort and my car from scratches. I suppose technically it’s trespassing, but it would also be trespassing if they came on my property to get to their grass. (There shouldn’t be an easement because there might be a tiny strip at the rear of their house they could maybe squeeze through to access their side). They’re very nice people and I also figure I can mow for them since I use that same strip to pile my snow
He is going for a prescriptive easement. It involves a lot more then just mowing. Here is the Ohio law:
In Ohio, a prescriptive easement is the acquisition of an easement, over the property owned by another, through adverse use of that property. Prescriptive easements are not favored in Ohio, as such easements deprive the legal property owner of rights to their land without compensation. In order to acquire an easement by prescription, the court requires the claimant to demonstrate clear and convincing evidence of 1) open, 2) notorious, 3) adverse, and 4) continuous use by it or its predecessor of an easement over property owned by another for a period of 21 years or more.
It sounds like the neighbor is confusing (combining) adverse possession and prescriptive easements. They both have basically the same criteria, including the 21 year time frame, but adverse possession actually transfers title/ownership of the land in question to the trespasser (and only if the trespasser had exclusive use of the land), whereas a prescriptive easement only grants the easement for a specific purpose, and it is non-exclusive.
And hey, if your neighbor has an easement giving him the right to walk on and mow that property, do you care?
Go mow it and take a date-stamped photo of you doing that.
But only once every 20 years.
Exactly.
I have no idea what he was thinking. At one point he started dropping hints that if I was ever interested in selling to let him know so he could make an offer. Note that these were adjoining lots in Chicago, so it’s not like he could have done anything like tear down my house to expand his. (When I did retire and sold the house it was purchased by a house flipper who pretty much gutted and rebuilt the interior. I occasionally wondered if the eventual new owner had any problems with him.)
I’ve watched some of those YouTube videos. I just generally assumed that the landscaper got permission before going at it. But …
In one video the guy noticed a nasty smell coming from a window. He checked inside and it was not good. Called 911 and left after the authorities got his story. Suffice to say the owner did not give permission.
Which leaves me as puzzled as the OP as to the deal.
I’m not sure how true that is. I was in an older section of Chicago last week originally built in the 1880s (in/around Wrigleyville).
I observed a lot of examples of where in the middle of a row of 1880s-era 3-flats there were double-width houses of 1940ish or even post-2000 construction. Darn good bet somebody bought up two adjacent lots, tore down two narrow residences and built one larger one on the site.
The lots in my neighborhood were fairly wide, a fact which may have been reflected by the house numbers (mine was 2156 and his was 2152). I believe my house was built sometime in the 1890s and had some strange interior rebuilds done to it over the years.
This is true in my state. IANAL but I had to look into this related to an HOA issue. You must either orally tell someone they are prohibited or post a sign.