My fence is just over 100 feet long. I have two neighbors behind me. For two years now I have watched them battle over their broken fence…pushing and tying it from one side and then the other. It never bothered me too bad because it didn’t effect me. As of last week the last post next to my fence broke. Now this disaster (their shared broken fence) is now leaning on my fence (shared with both of them), threatening to pull down who knows how much of my fence. Since I have moved in, three years ago, I have replaced 7 fence posts and never asked any of my neighbors for help financially or otherwise. There is a big bow in my fence now where there broken one is hanging…who knows how long it will stand. My idea is to take down the fence post and replace it with a 6"x6" instead of the usual 4"x4" so that they are free to do …whatever. However after replacing it, it would not be possible to hook the broken pieces back to it, even if I wanted to. Would I be justified in this and what could they do if they didn’t like it? One of the neighbors never answers the door and the other one answered once and in an avoiding way said “oh yeah…I plan on replacing it.” but wouldn’t specify when.
I am a first time home owner, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I don’t want to make enemies but I also don’t think I really care what they think of me…Im just worried about liability type of stuff.
I am a first-time homeowner that moved out of my place in Georgia, and had a bit of a spat with my neighbors. The first tip I will give you is this: “if it’s on your property, it’s your decision!” If you can legally verify your fence is on your side of the boundary, then you are completely within your rights to do what you have to. I say this because I set my fence 6-18" inside my boundary and the neighbors encroached. I sent them a letter, and they relented.
Anyway, if you have tied fences, it would be best to get your two other neighbors together to look at what’s going on. It sounds like each is trying to fix their fence as they see individually fit. If y’all come to a consensus, it’ll keep the community fence from pulling itself apart. I didn’t have that luxury with adversarial neighbors–you may have better luck.
Thanks, Yeah I’m gonna do my best to get along. I guess it might be a good idea to have a surveyor come in and find out if its actually on my property. All the slats are on my side and the home I bought seems to have been owned by a tradesman “do it yourself guy”, he’s done a lot of good but I guess the verdict is still out as to if he put the fence in the right place.
As much as I avoid neighbor wars (been there, done that) a new hundred foot fence would be really expensive. My advice, go out one day and cut any parts that tie your fence to theirs. They probably don’t care, or even realize what’s going on with your section of it. That way, the next time one of them flops it back over to the other person’s yard it just goes all the way over and doesn’t take yours with it. There’s a good chance they won’t even notice that you cut it.
You might not even have to cut it. Just back out the screws that hold the last panel of their fence to the first post on your property.
Ummm…one of these things is not like the other.
Before you start a war, take tripler’s advice: Hire a professional land surveyor.
Have him physically place stakes in the ground every 20 or 30 feet along your boundary line.
And pay extra for him to give you a map signed with his professional license number,showing the precise location of all the fences, with notations showing the precise distance of any encroachments.This is a legal document that could save your butt if your neighbors decide they want to fight.
Only then can you make decisions about how to fix things.
Look up “Adverse Possession” and your local interpretation.
The concept is:
If you use something as your own and the lawful owner does not object, after 7 years, the property is yours.
If the fence is where you like it, find out if it has been there long enough to establish that it, the fence, is the (now) lawful property boundary.
It looks like somebody in this house appropriated about 18" of a neighbor’s lot by erecting a new fence - and the ence has been treated as the boundary. My take is that the 18" is now my lawful property.
Do not count on a surveyor to tell you about Adverse Possession - he’s much rather get the work.
You still need the surveyor to mark the boundary, in order to prove the adverse possesion.
And you’ll need a lawyer to go to court and have the adverse possession legally assigned as your lawful property.
And then you may need to pay the surveyor again, to draw a map and file it with the local government, as an ammendment to the platted zoning plan in your neighborhood, thus making a permanent record of the changed boundary.
And you then need to pay taxes on the additional land you now own.
Making enemies of your neighbors should never be taken lightly. Pay your neighbors a visit, and if they are not home or do not answer the door, leave a note.
As someone who is in the middle of a similar tale, I’ve just had a surveyor mark my corners because I was concerned about adverse possession. I mentioned this to the surveyor and the result is that adverse possession laws vary from state to state, and are much harder to do than just a few fence posts. My issue is that people just drive over my property as they go back and forth to their yards.
As soon as I get the new siding on the house the old fence goes down and the new fence (all the way to the corners) goes up and that’s the end of that. Some of those people are going to have real difficulty geting inand out of their yards, but I’ve warned them the fence is coming and they need to get their construction/tree removal whatever done now. There’s an alley FGS, they need to use it.
