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Off topic... Neighbors!!

15 years ago

It is probably the wrong forum but I needed to vent. I have read in this forum many posts about plants for privacy so you don't see your neighbor... While I do understand and appreciate the need for privacy, I never though of this as big deal.. until now!!!

We are getting a puppy in the next few weeks, and we are doing some changes in the house to better fit it for the puppy. One of the changes is fence! Well, as I like do things on my own (and at the same time save some money) I decided to install it myself. Since I am no expert, I am doing as much research as possible. I got the city permit and everything I can think of (except my neighbor).

I started measuring the property lines... No big deal, is not a farm or similar so it is juts as easy as read the survey and measure the land around the house... right?

Well it turned out that my neighbor planted some bushes right on the property line and some even crossing it (so it means... In my property). Normally I would not complain, I do like plants and I wish more people plant more. I personally planted some bushes on both sides of my property, close to the line but never on the line! Anyway.. still no big deal! probably was a mistake.

So, I marked the property line as conservative as possible (as not no go over the other side), I guess he noticed it and later approached me to give me a heads up. "I cannot install the fence on the drainage", I know every property (at least every new house in normal communities) have a drainage area so the water can flow! and I know owners cannot install/build anything that blocks the water on top of the drainage area but a fence.. Well, still a good heads up, so I called the city and asked if this was the case. As I was thinking, I am allowed to install it on the property line. Of course I want to give a couple of inches inside my side (just to be on the safe side).

Having said so, to install the fence some of the plants probably need to be moved, so I approached him again, I wanted to be a good neighbor and make sure he is ok with the measures. He said he already talked to an attorney and a survey guy, he was asking me to pay for a new survey... I asked him to check his survey and I showed him mine, we measured the spaces and I showed him I was being conservative..

So far everything seems to be ok and he initially agreed, but he wanted to be there when I do the installation (I have no issues with it, and I event offered help to move the plants).

My question is what was he thinking? that I would install the fence 5 ft inside from the property line, basically giving up that area? How come he planted bushes on the property line and some even on my side and I did not complain?

I hope everything turns out to be well and we don't spoil the good relationships, but if I get more issues, I will hire people to install it and I don't care if they have to damage the plants that are crossing the line. I think I am on my right to do it as long as it is my property side. I feel I did everything possible to do things right but I want it to be fair with me as well. I mean, I wish he had installed the fence first as it would have saved me money but he did not... so what is the deal, I though he would be happy!

is there something I need to be aware before starting to install it so I don't get more issues?

Sorry for the long post!

Comments (23)

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Make sure you pull a permit so you don't have any other problems with him in the future!

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    You can pick your nose, but you can't pick your neighbors or your neighbor's nose.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    It is surprising to me how many people in our 'hood don't understand that you can fence the drainage easement.

    I don't play a lawyer, but we bought our house from one; he had encroachment issues with a neighbor and it was up to him to pay for the survey.

    Just make sure you do everything on the up and up. Get your permit, post it, stake and string your fence line. Give your neighbor written notice that fence will go up on certain day and that he can access your property to remove his plants. Oh, and make sure are 1 ft min inside the property line.

    And enjoy your puppy to be! What kind? Don't forget to puppy proof your back yard and make sure any harmful plants are removed.

    ~dianne

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Sounds like you did everything right....but right will be little consolation if you are on bad terms with a neighbor. I would just keep doing what you are doing, keep the neighbor informed and try to be helpful in moving the plants. I know you may not want to hear it but if he disputes where the line in ask if he will split the cost of the survey with you. If he refuses pay for it yourself. Once he knows exactly where the line is he will hopefully come to understand he is being unreasonable.......some people are slow when it comes to common sense.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    oye! I understand your frustration! We're going through that ourselves - in a rural area - where the "roads" are dirt lanes that wander around clumps of brush and property lines are nebulous at best. One neighbor in particular is extremely confrontational. Although the markers are in place, we may eventually have to have the property resurveyed and you can bet she is NOT going to help defray the cost. cora

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    i had a "new" survey done when i put up our fence. cost a couple hundred bucks, but it was obvious we were putting the fence on our propery, which they claimed was not. being the spineless person i am, i hired a guy to install it and made sure i wasn't home in case of a confrontation, which there wasn't! twelve years later we are good friends...kind of defused the situation having professionals do it.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Fences make for better neighbors :).

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    We built our house and before I moved in I had a fence installed. I am the only one on the block and the neighbors made remarks about it. I smiled and said you don't want my 120 pound lab over there in your yard. I am doing it to protect you. lol

    For some reason many people don't like fences and I personally don't under stand it. I want the privacy and don't want people seeing me weeding or in my pool.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I'm right there with you! Months ago I put up 2 raised beds on the side of my house. Apparently my neighbor said that was "too much" and wanted a fence dividing our lawns so she couldn't see it. We have been neighbors for 22 years and we love them. They did get a permit and "eyeballed" the lot line. I think they did put it a few inches on our lot, but I don't want to pay for a survey. Don't know what to do in this instance.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I just went thru the same thing this past month! I'm on a corner lot and haven't had a fence up for almost 10 yrs. In back of me, the people there have a caged in pool and then a row of arborvitae that are huge. They dumped the house over a year ago and let the pool look like a swamp and the shrubs and lawn were like a jungle. I called the county and they sent someone out to mow it and put a lien on the property. Well, they moved back in right before the final foreclosure hearing and they must know it was me that called the county, because they have been harassing me ever since. Every time I come out to do any gardening, she turns up the radio really loud. Then she goes inside and leaves it like that all day, even when she goes out. I called the police once I got so tired of it. They leave their 2 dogs outside and they bark non-stop.

    So, we put up a 6ft board-on-board fence. We had it done by pros and you don't need a permit here because it isn't a permanent structure. First, I went to the Permit & Zoning office and brought my survey with me. Turns out the 10 ft. easement along the back property line is still my property. When I was friends with the back neighbor we thought it belonged to the county. I must allow the county or the utility companies access, but it is my property and the man at the county office told me I can put my fence right on the line. I explained about the huge hedge and he said I could legally cut it back to my property line, as they are growing over my line by about 3 ft.

    When the fence men came, they dug out the property pins and showed me exactly where my line is. They recommended putting it 3 ft in from my line, only because the electric line runs right there and then I would be able to get behind to trim back his shrubs, as they will cause damage to my fence if left untrimmed.
    My neighbor came out and yelled at the fence men and told them they were on the easement. The fence guy told him they are on my property and showed him the 2 pins. He then told them that he wasn't going to take care of the shrubs anymore, since they are on the easement and that I'm only doing this out of spite!
    So now she just puts the radio on everytime she comes home, just in case we are out there. She heard us talking one Sat. morning at 9:30 and put the radio on loud. We were done digging out the new beds, so we just went in and ignored her.
    So, are you sure you need a permit? Can you locate the property pins in the ground? Btw, the fence on the side between me and the druggie neighbor is right on the property line. The fence men said to put it there or else you are losing your own property and it could cause a problem if we ever try to sell.
    This is your yard and your taxes and you can put a fence on it whether he likes it or not. I recommend board on board or vinyl so he can't see in.

    Now I have a question. Everyone tells me I have the right to cut the shrubs back to my property line and I had to cut them back some when the were installing the fence. Is there anyway to make the neighbor cut back his own shrubs? I'm not in that good shape and my DH doesn't need anything else to do on his day off. The neighbor has weedwacked under them since the fence, but he has to come onto my easement to do it. I just sprayed Round Up on the grass behind the fence on my part of the easement and am thinking of putting all the rocks we dug up along that path. Any ideas?
    Thanks and good luck. I know what you are going thru.
    Julie

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Our pins had sunk down almost 10 inches, so keep digging. We did and finally found them and raised them. :o)

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Thanks all for your feedback and advice...

    Does anybody knows how to find the iron pins? I know the approximate location (I guess +-10 inches of error) and I tried digging about 3 inches deep but found nothing. My house is 4+ years old so I don't expect the pins to be buried very deep... am I right? I don't have a metal detector and they are very expensive...

    Has anybody have ideas how to find.. or know how they should be put (deep/not deep, etc) ?

    Thanks again!

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    My in-laws purchased a tiny house in town for my husband and I to stay in years ago and when they did the purchase the neighbor found out the homes fence was 3" in his property and he wanted the fence moved. We said keep the fence.......... problem solved. Everyone happy. I don't know why some neighbors have to be such a pain. My neighbor where I am living now put in a metal privacy fence much further down the property line then what was there before and I hate it cause it really cut off my view of the lake we live on. But my desire to live without problems is greater then my need to see the lake from that vantage point. I let it go....... live and let live!

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    And then what do you do - put a stake directly above each pin and run a string from stake to stake to mark the lot line - assuming the lot lines on the survey are straight lines?

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Looking at your survey, there should be four corners that represent the four corners of your lot. Measure out from your house to that point and then follow it straight back. My fence guys went right to it, mainly because they know how to read a survey. This is why it might be better to go with pros to install it. When I saw how much work it involved and how fast they did it, I was glad we did. The pins are only a few inches below ground. They were just metal spikes. Good luck and keep us posted.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I think the fence men marked 3 ft. in from the pins and then they ran lines from stake to stake. I would never have found those pins by myself. They are just little metal stakes in the ground and they are so rusted from over the years.

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I assume one never moves the pin... in the neighbor's favor. {{gwi:387657}}

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Hello, may be you can help me to answer the following question. My neighbor put a fence and removed the pin. Now I can not find out if the fence installed correctly. What should I do? I called the city and ask if they are allowed to remove pins and they sad " Yes". How can I check if the fence is done right and where is my property line? I am not very good with survey.

    Thank you

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Hello, may be you can help me to answer the following question. My neighbor put a fence and removed the pin. Now I can not find out if the fence installed correctly. What should I do? I called the city and ask if they are allowed to remove pins and they sad " Yes". How can I check if the fence is done right and where is my property line? I am not very good with survey.

    mocropot
    You can get a ball of string and mark it off in 1 foot or more marks until you get to the width of your lot. (You can also buy a 100 ft tape measure but that would be more expensive.)
    Then find the pin on the other side of your lot and attach your string to a stick in the ground at that point. Measure to the other side as straight as you can to the fence. That will give you a ballpark idea if the fence is in the right place.

    If you think the fence is on your property no worries. You can politely ask your neighbor if they had a survey done to locate the fence because you "think" it might be on your property.

    Why "no worries"? Because if the fence is on your property it belongs to you.
    However you shouldn't do anything drastic (like removing it) until you can actually prove where your property lines is.

    If it was installed by a professional fence company it is very likely in the right place. They wouldn't stay in business very long putting fences on the wrong property.

    We did the measuring thing with our first lot many years ago on a day when no neighbors were home. It was very interesting because our lot turned out to be bigger than we thought. We didn't put up a fence but did start planting trees on the property line to remind us where it was. So did one neighbor lol.

    Denise

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I'm happy my neighbors only MOO, BAAA, and HEE HAW.
    Who could ask for anything more?

    I do hear them snicker when I run nekkid through the underbrush and stub my toe on a cactus.
    Lou

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Denise, Thank you so much for you explanation, BUT the problem is there is NO pin on the other side of the lot. The builder installed pin in increment of 2 ( pin-lot-lot-pin), that is why I have a problem to find out if the fence is installed correct and it was installed by the neighbor itself, not the company and I did not get any notification that it will be installed.
    Any thoughts?

    Lou, I would be happy too if mu neighbors would be MOO,BAAA, and HEE HAW

    Thank you,Helen

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    If your worried about the lot lines, pay a surveyer! Mine cost me $500 for piece of mind!

  • 15 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    BUT the problem is there is NO pin on the other side of the lot. The builder installed pin in increment of 2 ( pin-lot-lot-pin)

    Hi Helen

    OK I see. Well in that case you will need a longer piece of string to reach the pin that is in the ground, if you can locate it 2 lots away. If it was me I'd try and find the nearest pin and get a ballpark idea of where my property lines are.
    I agree with stuartwanda. You might be able to get it cheaper who knows.

    And since the neighbor did not have a professional installation how did they know where their lot line was?

    Good luck.

    Denise

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