silverbird
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Florida
We've owned this property for almost 19 years. Over three years ago, we had a new house built, and as part of the construction, the builder had an exhaustive survey done of the property and the entire area. We found that our fence was not on the property lines, and we were advised that at some point we would need to move the fence. We moved the fence on two sides, over three feet on one side and back 25 feet on the other side, to avoid any property dispute. Over a year ago, a neighbor down the street bought the vacant, landlocked strip of property just behind us and showed up on our doorstep threatening us with a lawsuit if we didn't get off of his property right away and that he was getting a survey to prove it. A month later, he brought the survey. We went to the surveyor in question, who said that our survey appeared to be the more legal one, since it was more exhaustive,was registered with the county and appeared to be based on legal coordinates. He said that he would call if any questions came up. We never heard anything, so we assumed that the matter had been settled.
This March, I found about 40 feet of our back fence and its attached posts ripped out and missing. We called the sheriff and were told that it was a civil dispute and that we needed to take it to court. But even though we suspected who it was, we had no proof. A month later, I found 50 feet of the replacement fence and posts torn out, broken up and thrown on our property. Still no evidence as to whom was responsible. The next week, our son found the fence cut up and flung on our property with the posts. The grass had been mowed and the property had been posted with no trespass signs, with the neighbor's name, address and phone number on them. Our son stationed himself in the area, as he witnessed them cutting up the fence, tearing it out with the posts and flinging it on our property, nightly while taking pictures and cussing us out. This had gone on for over a week when we piled our entire burn pile of cut tree branches into the fence to make them work really hard and to decide to stop. They took pictures and laughed at us, and have left the fence alone since. We then inspected the fence and found that the survey flag and post were missing from that corner, and the fence had been cut in five foot increments along 200 feet of fence line.
We filed in Small Claims court and have already gone through pretrial, where they sent us to mediation. We found that he had also filed his survey with the county in the past year. We were told to get legal advice and to subpeona our surveyors. We called legal aid but they lack the expertise to help us and we really don't have the money for an attorney. We did subpeona our surveyor. Our court date is August 11. Any advice, suggestions etc?
We've owned this property for almost 19 years. Over three years ago, we had a new house built, and as part of the construction, the builder had an exhaustive survey done of the property and the entire area. We found that our fence was not on the property lines, and we were advised that at some point we would need to move the fence. We moved the fence on two sides, over three feet on one side and back 25 feet on the other side, to avoid any property dispute. Over a year ago, a neighbor down the street bought the vacant, landlocked strip of property just behind us and showed up on our doorstep threatening us with a lawsuit if we didn't get off of his property right away and that he was getting a survey to prove it. A month later, he brought the survey. We went to the surveyor in question, who said that our survey appeared to be the more legal one, since it was more exhaustive,was registered with the county and appeared to be based on legal coordinates. He said that he would call if any questions came up. We never heard anything, so we assumed that the matter had been settled.
This March, I found about 40 feet of our back fence and its attached posts ripped out and missing. We called the sheriff and were told that it was a civil dispute and that we needed to take it to court. But even though we suspected who it was, we had no proof. A month later, I found 50 feet of the replacement fence and posts torn out, broken up and thrown on our property. Still no evidence as to whom was responsible. The next week, our son found the fence cut up and flung on our property with the posts. The grass had been mowed and the property had been posted with no trespass signs, with the neighbor's name, address and phone number on them. Our son stationed himself in the area, as he witnessed them cutting up the fence, tearing it out with the posts and flinging it on our property, nightly while taking pictures and cussing us out. This had gone on for over a week when we piled our entire burn pile of cut tree branches into the fence to make them work really hard and to decide to stop. They took pictures and laughed at us, and have left the fence alone since. We then inspected the fence and found that the survey flag and post were missing from that corner, and the fence had been cut in five foot increments along 200 feet of fence line.
We filed in Small Claims court and have already gone through pretrial, where they sent us to mediation. We found that he had also filed his survey with the county in the past year. We were told to get legal advice and to subpeona our surveyors. We called legal aid but they lack the expertise to help us and we really don't have the money for an attorney. We did subpeona our surveyor. Our court date is August 11. Any advice, suggestions etc?
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