What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? SC
My husband and I have owned a single family home in South Carolina for over 8 years. Now that we are selling it, we have learned the neighbor's patio overlaps the recently surveyed property line by about 4 feet. The edge is less than a foot from the side of our house.
The patio has been in place for at least 50 years and no previous owners of our house (of which there have been at least four) ever took any action on this matter, nor did we. The house has been in the neighbors' family for over 50 years, and has a side entrance, and path to their backyard, making their use of the area logical to us and apparently to previous owners.
Unfortunately we didn't realize this situation until we were under contract to sell the house Needless to say, it became a bit confusing. We never reached repair amount agreement with the buyers nor a resolution on the boundary and now the contract with the buyers has officially expired. HOWEVER... they may still want to buy if we can resolve this quickly.
The neighbors have communicated to us (via their lawyer) that they believe they have a right to adverse possession of the patio area. No suit has been filed yet. Whether they do or not - and from everything I have read, they may well have a good case - I would prefer NOT to resolve this in a lawsuit. We are willing to work an agreement with them even if we have to GIVE them several feet of property. As an annoying complication, runoff from the patio has been contributing to water leaking under our house.... but if we retain at least 3 feet of property alongside our house, we've been told by a contractor that a french drain set in a gravel bed should fix that.
What is the FASTEST way we could get this done? Even if the buyers who were interested decide they want to move on, we want to be sure we have a clear title ASAP to get this house back on the market.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
My husband and I have owned a single family home in South Carolina for over 8 years. Now that we are selling it, we have learned the neighbor's patio overlaps the recently surveyed property line by about 4 feet. The edge is less than a foot from the side of our house.
The patio has been in place for at least 50 years and no previous owners of our house (of which there have been at least four) ever took any action on this matter, nor did we. The house has been in the neighbors' family for over 50 years, and has a side entrance, and path to their backyard, making their use of the area logical to us and apparently to previous owners.
Unfortunately we didn't realize this situation until we were under contract to sell the house Needless to say, it became a bit confusing. We never reached repair amount agreement with the buyers nor a resolution on the boundary and now the contract with the buyers has officially expired. HOWEVER... they may still want to buy if we can resolve this quickly.
The neighbors have communicated to us (via their lawyer) that they believe they have a right to adverse possession of the patio area. No suit has been filed yet. Whether they do or not - and from everything I have read, they may well have a good case - I would prefer NOT to resolve this in a lawsuit. We are willing to work an agreement with them even if we have to GIVE them several feet of property. As an annoying complication, runoff from the patio has been contributing to water leaking under our house.... but if we retain at least 3 feet of property alongside our house, we've been told by a contractor that a french drain set in a gravel bed should fix that.
What is the FASTEST way we could get this done? Even if the buyers who were interested decide they want to move on, we want to be sure we have a clear title ASAP to get this house back on the market.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?