What is the name of your state? Oregon
My husband and I purchased a new house on 5 acre lot about 18 months ago. We have located all of our pins but most of our property is wooded and uneven. We have a 1300+ property line that abutted an undivided 10 acre parcel at the time of our purchase. Since the purchase the adjacent 10 acre parcel has been subdivided and we now have 2 properties abutting instead of one.
When we purchased the property, there was a old wire fence on the property line. As is common in rural settings the fence meandered with the landscape. The fence was installed by the previous owner of our lot who still lives adjacent to us. Our property is sloped at one point and is extremely wooded over half of it making it difficult to get a straight line for a fence. When we purchased the property we were made aware by our builder that the fence followed the property line to a point. There was a stake (not a survey iron) located at the location where the deviation began. Further east about 350 feet of that point there was also survey ribbon tied on a fence the crossed the property line indicating the point the line crossed the fence.
There is now a new house under construction adjacent to us and we are having boundary issues with the new neighbor (actually he hasn't even moved in yet.) During his first encounter with my husband, the neighbor mentioned that at some point he would like to replace the fence. My husband indicated we wanted to do the same someday as well. My husband walked away thinking he had a brief conversation about distant plans that would be dicussed between us when the time to came to replace the fence. Evidently the neighbor had a different interpretation. We came home one day to find the fence along the line gone, the stake removed, and the fence with the survey ribbon missing as well.
We confronted him about not speaking to us regarding the removal for which the reponse has been "Yes I did" and "It was my fence on my property" which seems contracdictory. Neverthless, being our first experience with him we chalked it up to a miscommunication. He began installing a new fence several weeks later, this time with the intent of following the property lines. There was immiediately an issue.
His prelimary staking of the fence had it going over our septic tank, about 10 feet from where we believed the propety line to be. The tank was installed 18 months ago and is required to be at least 5 feet from the property line. It was clearly in these peramters whith our previous previous reference points however with all of them gone we had nothing to base the line on. The line also cuts along the bottom of a gully, each of us having to maintain a side. He has placed the fence at the toe of the slope on our side, taking all the level landing area. This makes it impossible to get any equipment in to mow the slope.
We have found the irons of the joint line on the west end and believe we have the iron on the east end but because the commong boundary line is around 700 feet in length, the property drops about 20 to 30 feet, and travels through the woods, you have no clear line of site. The old stake and survey tape on the old fence he removed had previously provided interim points along the line to aid in this. We immiediately suggested we split the cost of the survey to have the line remarked. I felt this was generious since he removed everything in the first place. He didn't jump at this. We asked him not to place the fence before we agreed on the location. Shortly thereafter he slightly relocated the line to a point where my husband and I did not think the loss in property was worth the cost of fighting, however we never confirmed that the restaked line was ok with the neighbor. This was several weeks ago.
Yesterday, the fence appeared, over the septic tank. He never consulted us. He is clearly on our property in some locations and has clearly even errored in his favor when a tree intruded in his interpretation of the property line. I have since put him on notice we are not in agreement on the line and insisted on a survey.
Since our properties were both recently subdivided by the same surveyor in the last 3 years, there should be little problem with the legal definition of the boundary, it is simple a matter of interpretting the paper onto the land. I have contacted that surveyor to stake that common line.
After much arguing back and forth the neighbor has tentatively agreed to split the costs of the survey. However, I don't expect him to really pony up when the time comes. The neighbor has established something of a reputation. On his opposite side, he attempted to fence of a common driveway shared by him an 3 other houses because his property line went down the middle. I am not expecting him to go quietly.
I have several issues.
Do we have a legal recourse to go after him for the survey costs? We could have reached an acceptable solution had he not removed the fence without our permission and staked interim points based off of the known locations. Admittedly these were not official markers but we could have gotten close. It would be difficult to prove whether the fence was indeed on his property or ours at this time...although I am fortunate to have recent low altitude aerial photography of our lot and home with the old fence line in place.
If he is on my property, do I have right to tear the encroaching portion of the fence down? I would assume that I would want to document the surveyors staking to back myself up before I did this.
If for some reason we are horribly in error, and my septic tank does encroach on the property, would I have a legal recourse to go back after the builder to have the situation corrected? Having the aerial photography, I seriously doubt this is an issue because you cannot make the location of the current fence line up with the known location of two irons on the west end of the line in the aerial photography and still wind up over the septic tank (visible on the aerial photography). The line is a straight shot per the plats of the properties. The old fence would also have to have been off 10 or twelve feet. Stranger things have happened though.
Are there other issues that I should consider?
My husband and I purchased a new house on 5 acre lot about 18 months ago. We have located all of our pins but most of our property is wooded and uneven. We have a 1300+ property line that abutted an undivided 10 acre parcel at the time of our purchase. Since the purchase the adjacent 10 acre parcel has been subdivided and we now have 2 properties abutting instead of one.
When we purchased the property, there was a old wire fence on the property line. As is common in rural settings the fence meandered with the landscape. The fence was installed by the previous owner of our lot who still lives adjacent to us. Our property is sloped at one point and is extremely wooded over half of it making it difficult to get a straight line for a fence. When we purchased the property we were made aware by our builder that the fence followed the property line to a point. There was a stake (not a survey iron) located at the location where the deviation began. Further east about 350 feet of that point there was also survey ribbon tied on a fence the crossed the property line indicating the point the line crossed the fence.
There is now a new house under construction adjacent to us and we are having boundary issues with the new neighbor (actually he hasn't even moved in yet.) During his first encounter with my husband, the neighbor mentioned that at some point he would like to replace the fence. My husband indicated we wanted to do the same someday as well. My husband walked away thinking he had a brief conversation about distant plans that would be dicussed between us when the time to came to replace the fence. Evidently the neighbor had a different interpretation. We came home one day to find the fence along the line gone, the stake removed, and the fence with the survey ribbon missing as well.
We confronted him about not speaking to us regarding the removal for which the reponse has been "Yes I did" and "It was my fence on my property" which seems contracdictory. Neverthless, being our first experience with him we chalked it up to a miscommunication. He began installing a new fence several weeks later, this time with the intent of following the property lines. There was immiediately an issue.
His prelimary staking of the fence had it going over our septic tank, about 10 feet from where we believed the propety line to be. The tank was installed 18 months ago and is required to be at least 5 feet from the property line. It was clearly in these peramters whith our previous previous reference points however with all of them gone we had nothing to base the line on. The line also cuts along the bottom of a gully, each of us having to maintain a side. He has placed the fence at the toe of the slope on our side, taking all the level landing area. This makes it impossible to get any equipment in to mow the slope.
We have found the irons of the joint line on the west end and believe we have the iron on the east end but because the commong boundary line is around 700 feet in length, the property drops about 20 to 30 feet, and travels through the woods, you have no clear line of site. The old stake and survey tape on the old fence he removed had previously provided interim points along the line to aid in this. We immiediately suggested we split the cost of the survey to have the line remarked. I felt this was generious since he removed everything in the first place. He didn't jump at this. We asked him not to place the fence before we agreed on the location. Shortly thereafter he slightly relocated the line to a point where my husband and I did not think the loss in property was worth the cost of fighting, however we never confirmed that the restaked line was ok with the neighbor. This was several weeks ago.
Yesterday, the fence appeared, over the septic tank. He never consulted us. He is clearly on our property in some locations and has clearly even errored in his favor when a tree intruded in his interpretation of the property line. I have since put him on notice we are not in agreement on the line and insisted on a survey.
Since our properties were both recently subdivided by the same surveyor in the last 3 years, there should be little problem with the legal definition of the boundary, it is simple a matter of interpretting the paper onto the land. I have contacted that surveyor to stake that common line.
After much arguing back and forth the neighbor has tentatively agreed to split the costs of the survey. However, I don't expect him to really pony up when the time comes. The neighbor has established something of a reputation. On his opposite side, he attempted to fence of a common driveway shared by him an 3 other houses because his property line went down the middle. I am not expecting him to go quietly.
I have several issues.
Do we have a legal recourse to go after him for the survey costs? We could have reached an acceptable solution had he not removed the fence without our permission and staked interim points based off of the known locations. Admittedly these were not official markers but we could have gotten close. It would be difficult to prove whether the fence was indeed on his property or ours at this time...although I am fortunate to have recent low altitude aerial photography of our lot and home with the old fence line in place.
If he is on my property, do I have right to tear the encroaching portion of the fence down? I would assume that I would want to document the surveyors staking to back myself up before I did this.
If for some reason we are horribly in error, and my septic tank does encroach on the property, would I have a legal recourse to go back after the builder to have the situation corrected? Having the aerial photography, I seriously doubt this is an issue because you cannot make the location of the current fence line up with the known location of two irons on the west end of the line in the aerial photography and still wind up over the septic tank (visible on the aerial photography). The line is a straight shot per the plats of the properties. The old fence would also have to have been off 10 or twelve feet. Stranger things have happened though.
Are there other issues that I should consider?
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