What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? AL
I recently bought a property (about 5 months ago), and it sat uninhabited for between 5 to 10 years prior to my purchase.
The lot had no fencing, so we called the code inspector out, he showed us exactly what type, where, how high, etc our fences could be. We are in the process of building (about half completed) it now.
As soon as my neighbor (who rents the house currently, but plans to buy it in about a year) saw that we were putting up a fence between us and them, he became quite sullen and refuses to talk to us, saying 'think about it, you know what you did.' The only prior communications had been to introduce ourselves and give he and his wife a Christmas gift of coffee and candies (to be friendly).
For a while we decided to just ignore them. We are within the law with our fence, as it meets ALL local codes. Him not liking it being on our property (2 1/2 feet back from our property line, no less) is his problem.
Then the problem came tonight when my boyfriend called me upset about the neighbor. Again. There is a PRIVATE sidewalk that was put in when the neighborhood was built, because of the fact that the houses are oriented sideways on the lots (so the front doors faced each other). The sidewalk runs down the property line from where the front doors existed to the street, I assume to facilitate walking to the mailboxes, which are at the end of our sidewalk.
I checked and this sidewalk is truly private property, not some public easement, or neighborhood sidewalk. However, since the house sat vacant for so long, the neighborhood people have been using it has a cut through from the alley behind our house to the street in front of it. We do not want the liability of the public getting hurt on our property, or graffiti-ing our fence, so we added a gate between the neighbor's fence and ours, to block the area from the public. We placed locks on each gate, and called the owner of that property (who rents to our neighbor), to let him know, and he said it was fine, and to give the neighbor a copy of the key so he can maintain his side of the yard, access, etc. The neighbor refused to take the key, saying he didn't want a key to the gates and not to talk to him.
Tonight, my boyfriend got there, after dark, and the neighbor had TAKEN THE GATES OFF OF THEIR HINGES, AND WAS MOWING HIS SIDE OF THE FENCE IN THE DARK.
When approached about it, he said he was going to call the magistrate about the gate because he doesn't want it there, and no he doesn't want a key.
Is this crackpot legally allowed to do ANY of this??? On the land survey, the sidewalk is actually on more of our property than his, does that make a difference? If we want the access blocked from the public and he doesn't, who wins legally?
He is NOT someone we can amicably resolve this with, as we have tried many times, and I believe him to be mentally ill. But the owner likes he and his wife because they pay their rent on time.
Who do we need to go to to get this issue resolved once and for all? And once he owns the property, are we going to have to go through all of this again?
I recently bought a property (about 5 months ago), and it sat uninhabited for between 5 to 10 years prior to my purchase.
The lot had no fencing, so we called the code inspector out, he showed us exactly what type, where, how high, etc our fences could be. We are in the process of building (about half completed) it now.
As soon as my neighbor (who rents the house currently, but plans to buy it in about a year) saw that we were putting up a fence between us and them, he became quite sullen and refuses to talk to us, saying 'think about it, you know what you did.' The only prior communications had been to introduce ourselves and give he and his wife a Christmas gift of coffee and candies (to be friendly).
For a while we decided to just ignore them. We are within the law with our fence, as it meets ALL local codes. Him not liking it being on our property (2 1/2 feet back from our property line, no less) is his problem.
Then the problem came tonight when my boyfriend called me upset about the neighbor. Again. There is a PRIVATE sidewalk that was put in when the neighborhood was built, because of the fact that the houses are oriented sideways on the lots (so the front doors faced each other). The sidewalk runs down the property line from where the front doors existed to the street, I assume to facilitate walking to the mailboxes, which are at the end of our sidewalk.
I checked and this sidewalk is truly private property, not some public easement, or neighborhood sidewalk. However, since the house sat vacant for so long, the neighborhood people have been using it has a cut through from the alley behind our house to the street in front of it. We do not want the liability of the public getting hurt on our property, or graffiti-ing our fence, so we added a gate between the neighbor's fence and ours, to block the area from the public. We placed locks on each gate, and called the owner of that property (who rents to our neighbor), to let him know, and he said it was fine, and to give the neighbor a copy of the key so he can maintain his side of the yard, access, etc. The neighbor refused to take the key, saying he didn't want a key to the gates and not to talk to him.
Tonight, my boyfriend got there, after dark, and the neighbor had TAKEN THE GATES OFF OF THEIR HINGES, AND WAS MOWING HIS SIDE OF THE FENCE IN THE DARK.
When approached about it, he said he was going to call the magistrate about the gate because he doesn't want it there, and no he doesn't want a key.
Is this crackpot legally allowed to do ANY of this??? On the land survey, the sidewalk is actually on more of our property than his, does that make a difference? If we want the access blocked from the public and he doesn't, who wins legally?
He is NOT someone we can amicably resolve this with, as we have tried many times, and I believe him to be mentally ill. But the owner likes he and his wife because they pay their rent on time.
Who do we need to go to to get this issue resolved once and for all? And once he owns the property, are we going to have to go through all of this again?