Neighbor's driveway & addition

jacksonsara said:

What is the name of your state? GA
Hi all,
My husband and I bought out house in November 2003. When we moved in, our neighbor was in the process of adding a second story to his house. We did not have a survey on our house but had to get one this spring in order to get the permits to build a deck. Low and behold, about 18" of the neighbor's driveway and a few inches of his addition are on our property.

When my husband showed the neighbor our survey, he said our survey was wrong.

We know that this guy tried to buy part of our property from the previous owner. He wouldn't sell it. Our neighbor served as his own general contractor so we're not surprised that he might have 'goofed'. Further the surveyor noted that you can see where the neighbor's driveway pins were moved over (towards our house).

We do not want to have to pay for lawyers to sort this out -- we feel like the neighbor should pay any legal fees incurred. We've been very agreeable about this when we started this process four months ago -- we'll take a property swap or we'll sell the land to the neighbor. But now he's avoiding us. We don't even know where to start -- call a lawyer, call the mortgage company, call the county???

Any advice is appreciated,
Sara

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jacksonsara said:

But then wouldn't we just be giving them the property anyway w/an encroachment agreement??

**A: absolutely not. You would still rightfully own the property just as you do now.
The only difference is that both property owners would have a legal agreement recorded on title documenting the fact that the land is yours, the neighbor will not ever make a claim for adverse possession, if the addition and driveway are destroyed by fire, act of God etc. any new driveway or building would not encroach................
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I think they should a) pay for the land they took or b) offer to provide us w/a property swap. And of course, they should pay any and all legal fees associated with this.
Will the attorney need to do another survey in order to draw up the encroachment agreement?
Thanks,
Sara

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annefan said:

If the property owner agrees to the driveway, wouldn't it be called 'easement' agreement (as opposed to encroachment). The poster might want to search by this term.

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