Thanks for all the replies. A lot of good comments/questions/suggestions. So based on them here is so more information and remember I'm not sure if all of this is a "lawyer" situation or "strategy" situation or both. In my head right now its a delicate situation... I don't want to lose the 3 feet i have right now by asking if I can have or buy it. i.e. Right now its clear nobody with regard to the land cares about the 3 feet right now. They are either oblivious or don't care as its not a problem for them now. But if i mention it, then maybe they will feel, compelled, with official knowledge of the situation, they have to "enforce" the boundary. So remember the parks and rec dept lease it from the school district and have a 10 year lease that’s always been renewed and ongoing for 40 years. The neighborhood is aging and really in all likelihood there will NEVER be a school built here. No need. And the parks and rec dept just held a neighborhood meeting saying they are probably going to "develop" the field into some walkways and grass and flowers etc. to make it more like a park than just a field. They know the school district can break the lease at anytime but don't expect it to. The parks and rec look at the field as low hanging fruit in that if they can make it "nice", they can now call it a park and satisfy some population to park ratio. That's all great and not inconsistent in what I want to do. As lessors, I'm sure they couldn't care less about my 3 feet. They have a job to do and that is to make park-like land. And if the school wants it back, they just give it back and go on about doing what they do at other places. So, I kind of see it as the school owns the land but never intends to use it, and parks and rec dept get to have some land to "manage" as a very very simple neighborhood park, if that, and they don't really care about the land except to possibly put some grass, walkways, and flowers on it and check a box that says we have some park area, (until we don't if that ever happens).
Thanks Quincy for the advice I cannot acquire the land through adverse passion. That probably clears up and shoots down plan A. I will assume that is true as I know a lot about computers but nothing about the law except I think you are not supposed to rob banks nor drive drunk.
Also for Quincy: "I wouldn’t count on being able to purchase the land but seeing a real estate professional in your area wouldn’t hurt."
What kind of real estate professional am i looking for? A lawyer? or a real-estate agent?
So also, along with all I'm asking, who am I dealing with: The Schools or Parks and Rec. I assume the schools since they actually own the land but I also suspect if I could even find out who deals with that in the schools I would probably get a blank stare until they looked it up and said, "oh yeah that's ours. oh, you have a fence 3 feet on it? Ok, move it back...NEXT...".
Another answer: Yes, the school has no fence. I have a simple, cheap?, see-through iron fence, which was put there by the first owner 12 years before I bought the house. I was never even advised about the 3 feet when I bought the house. But that’s another issue I guess. My neighbor told me several years later, (as they know they also have 3 feet and are the original owners).
So on the comment "Buy the land". I would be happy to do so. But I would have to ask that question and am afraid that might lead to the boundary enforcement. ie, i am trying to work out a strategy, (if there is one to be worked out), to do this "delicately".
So the questions I'm getting back, reasonably, seem to be, roughly,: do the landscaping smartly so you can reverse it.
Ok, here is the deal on that, and why this is sort of painful. Imagine my 80 foot line on a nice flat piece of land. All nice and geometric, cookie cutter etc. Yes, then THAT is the solution. In fact I probably just give up the 3 feet immediately and just go about my business. The problem is, it’s not quite that simple. Even though we are talking about a neighborhood with rectangular lots and a "roughly" straight boundary against 10 or so houses, the land is uneven and rises 5 feet from house to house. ie my house is 5 feet higher than my neighbor to the left but 5 fee lower than to my right. So my 80 foot boundary rises 5 feet from one side to the other. Then it is complicated by the fact that whole 80 feet, (now looking perpendicularly), has a local crest where it rises right where my fence is and then lowers into a small valley 10 feet away on the school land, and then rises again when well within the school property. I suspect that's why the fence was put there in the first place. The rise in land over those 3 feet made it a natural place to put the fence, (at its crest). It would have been weird to have a fast down sloping area with a fence put there. I'm probably giving too much description here for a reader to imagine it properly. But one more thing. I want to grade part of my yard flatter along with part of the 3 feet so that my yard is mostly flat and does most of that 5 foot rise more sharply toward the right-hand part of the yard rather than a more gradual slope, (the 5 feet), all the way all the way across it. So, in a nutshell, its a bit complicate what i want to do, but its sort of all or nothing.
This brings me to answer: "... That being said, the most prudent advice is to proceed with landscaping your actual property, give up the three feet, and move the fence where it should be."
and
"That seems to be the safest and smartest way to handle it. The school is likely to develop the property at some point in time."
First off as i said, I doubt the school will ever develop it and certainly doesn't have any plans now. But more to part of the point. Keeping in mind how I was trying to describe the property is not a flat simple piece. Even if i give up the 3 feet, I want to grade my part of it. That's pretty much not negotiable and the part of it that's my land is my land so it seems I should be able to do that. But how do i even do that? Do I grade my part lower than theirs and just wait for their part to erode to my level? i.e. I don’t put in a retaining wall, (for their sake), because I don’t want that part of thier land higher than mine. Not sure that's legal but why not? I'm not touching their side if i do that. I'm just taking away part of my dirt that continuously supports their dirt. And its not a “big hillside” where you need a retaining wall or it will mess up everything. This would just be a somewhat small local crest that would flatten if I did that.
Another question: Say i do this. Give up my 3 feet. Just grade just my property and watch the other side crumble down to my level and then just deal with my legal land. Do I have a problem? i.e. can I be sued for doing something that allowed/forced their land to reshape itself?
I have probably just made this more confusing. In my mind everything is simple if i can just keep the 3 feet and grade it nicely. But maybe there is no way to do this with raising the question. However, part of me also feels if I just did it, nobody would ever bring it up or care. But if they did, what are my damages? Is it possibly better in this case to ask for forgiveness later than permission now?
