What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?Ma
Hello,
A little history is in order.....We purchased our house in 2001, the home has been in our family since the 1920's it was built by my great grandfather. The house directly next door was built in 1950 by my grandfather and was owned by him until he died in 1992. Because of my history with the properties I noticed something wasn't right after we bought our house and lived there for a while with the property lines. The previous owner of our house (cousin) used our house as a single family rental property from 1992 until we bought it in 2001. He claims that he did basic maintenance on the property and never gave any thought to where the neighbors fence was because it followed close to what was estimated as the property line. He also claims that he did not have any verbal or written agreements with the neighbors to encroach on his land with their fence.
When we purhcased the property there wasn't anything that showed any type of easments, restrictions etc.
On file at the registry of deeds in our county lists the approximate lines and distance on our deed, total sq/ft is 33106; we verified this with our assessors office as well. Our neighbors lot is only 7405sq/ft. The neighbors bought their house off our family back in 1992.
About 1.5 years ago we noticed the neighbors removing a portion of fence on their back lot line and expanding it further onto what we thought was our property. We attempted to stop them and let them know that we had arranged for a survey and that they might be putting the fence on our lot, they refused and kept working until the fence was complete.
Three months later the surveyor completed the survey, installed metal stakes and wooden stakes painted orange and it clearly showed the property line. The result based on measuring the legnth of fence and having the line distances from the survey showed they were using about 2900sq/ft that incresed their lot by 39%.
We have spoken to them several times about the fence and the encroachment and they think it is still their land.
We sent them a certified letter (RRR) on 9 Feb 05, they refused to pick it up, we called and asked why the refused and the woman of the house insisted the land was theirs and they were not going to remove the fence off our land.
Our house went on the market on the 9th as well. We now have an offer which the buyers want to have the fence moved before closing (30 Mar 05). It was disclosed to the buyers that the fence was encroaching and that we were trying to have them move the fence.
We are nervous that we will lose the sale if the neighbors don't comply. At this point I am willing to pay for the removal and reinstallation of the fence to the appropriate lot line (based on our survey), in order to expidite the process. Now to the questions....Thanks for your patience!
If we need to settle this in court, which seems like the only solution, how long would something like this take to remedy?
What should be our next course of action be at this point?
We don't have a huge amount of money to play with if we need to take this to court.
Hello,
A little history is in order.....We purchased our house in 2001, the home has been in our family since the 1920's it was built by my great grandfather. The house directly next door was built in 1950 by my grandfather and was owned by him until he died in 1992. Because of my history with the properties I noticed something wasn't right after we bought our house and lived there for a while with the property lines. The previous owner of our house (cousin) used our house as a single family rental property from 1992 until we bought it in 2001. He claims that he did basic maintenance on the property and never gave any thought to where the neighbors fence was because it followed close to what was estimated as the property line. He also claims that he did not have any verbal or written agreements with the neighbors to encroach on his land with their fence.
When we purhcased the property there wasn't anything that showed any type of easments, restrictions etc.
On file at the registry of deeds in our county lists the approximate lines and distance on our deed, total sq/ft is 33106; we verified this with our assessors office as well. Our neighbors lot is only 7405sq/ft. The neighbors bought their house off our family back in 1992.
About 1.5 years ago we noticed the neighbors removing a portion of fence on their back lot line and expanding it further onto what we thought was our property. We attempted to stop them and let them know that we had arranged for a survey and that they might be putting the fence on our lot, they refused and kept working until the fence was complete.
Three months later the surveyor completed the survey, installed metal stakes and wooden stakes painted orange and it clearly showed the property line. The result based on measuring the legnth of fence and having the line distances from the survey showed they were using about 2900sq/ft that incresed their lot by 39%.
We have spoken to them several times about the fence and the encroachment and they think it is still their land.
We sent them a certified letter (RRR) on 9 Feb 05, they refused to pick it up, we called and asked why the refused and the woman of the house insisted the land was theirs and they were not going to remove the fence off our land.
Our house went on the market on the 9th as well. We now have an offer which the buyers want to have the fence moved before closing (30 Mar 05). It was disclosed to the buyers that the fence was encroaching and that we were trying to have them move the fence.
We are nervous that we will lose the sale if the neighbors don't comply. At this point I am willing to pay for the removal and reinstallation of the fence to the appropriate lot line (based on our survey), in order to expidite the process. Now to the questions....Thanks for your patience!
If we need to settle this in court, which seems like the only solution, how long would something like this take to remedy?
What should be our next course of action be at this point?
We don't have a huge amount of money to play with if we need to take this to court.