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ATP: How should I confront this potential land/property-line dispute?

My neighbors little 2 lb dogs come and shit in my natural area every morning. I've done well to not punt them back over or let my lab out to handle the problem. The husband fell over dead in their kitchen 2 weeks after we moved in so I feel sorry for her. Pick your battles I guess.

Sounds like your neighbor is a dick though.
 
Here's your subdivsion plat (I erased your street name). You've got a 20' drainage easement to the benefit of the HOA, divided between your lot and your adjoining neighbor's lot to the south. You also have a 15' drainage easement at the rear of your lot and all lots have a 5' utility easement across the frontage.

You might check with your lender to see if they have a survey of your property from when you purchased it.

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Am I looking at this simply enough?

Based on my rudimentary surveying... he killed that grass and built the entire damned junk area on my property.

Thanks for the bushes, asshole.

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Eta: I'm not a smart man, Ginny.
 
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The easement is 20' -- 10' on your side of the property line and 10' on his side of the property line. It really doesn't look like he's that far off, but I can't tell from the perspective of your photos. Only a survey would really show. GIS photo is probably off a little bit.
 
vtwhat etc said:
10-4. I was mistaken on that part. So, now... I've got way more reason to be pissed off at the old neighbor, though. Oh well. This does answer my questions.

When he was wrecking that shit, I guess I wrongly thought the easement was HOA-owned land.

Oh, and now I can say with 1,000% certainty that my dogs never shat off my property.
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Just going forward, and for others reading this thread, an easement doesn't change the ownership of the land. It just allows another party (HOA, utilities, neighbor) to use that land for a specific, stated purpose.

As others have said, get a survey, stake out the property line, and modify the landscaping on your side of the line to make it clear to any potential new owner who owns what.
 
BiffTannen said:
The easement is 20' -- 10' on your side of the property line and 10' on his side of the property line. It really doesn't look like he's that far off, but I can't tell from the perspective of your photos. Only a survey would really show. GIS photo is probably off a little bit.
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You just saved me from real-life embarrassment and shame.

ETA: ironically, the only reason I knew about a 10' easement is because the neighbor told me about it. I bought the house after 'renting' it from a friend, so I skipped through a lot of the basic steps. It makes WAY more sense that its 20' and 10' on both sides.

I genuinely thank you for digging deeper than I had.
 
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Glad I could help. If you don't know how to do the digging it can be very difficult to find an easy answer.
 
BiffTannen said:
The easement is 20' -- 10' on your side of the property line and 10' on his side of the property line. It really doesn't look like he's that far off, but I can't tell from the perspective of your photos. Only a survey would really show. GIS photo is probably off a little bit.
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Agreed. I think at most he is off a foot to 18". Hard to tell from the images, but I do not think it is a huge difference. When the mortgage company for the new buyer comes along (assuming they have one) you will see where their survey marks the line.
 
Surveys aren't always required to obtain a mortgage. I'd probably still order one if they close without a survey, just to be safe and get a concrete answer.
 
VT you have received some good advice from other posters. Just be sure when the property is surveyed they mark the corners by driving steel pin on each corner, they usually do this. Of course they will initially mark with a stake and marker but those usually do not remain long. I have been in many property suits over my career. Good luck!
 
The correct answer here is:
- Get survey done and assuming you're right, have small claims court lawsuit (suing to have your entire yard re-sod) written up, and have it delivered to him via certified mail attached to a letter telling him that if he ever speaks to you or anyone in your family again, or even gives you the stink eye while you're out letting your dog take a poop on your side of the easement, you'll file the lawsuit for the fun of it. You went to Wake. Everyone knows that people who went to Wake are filthy rich, so you have the money and time to burn.

Seriously though, I'd just get the survey done and they have a good conversation with the listing agent about how this dude is nuts and they need to unload that house and client as quickly as possible. Then I'd become actual friends with the new neighbor.
 
If you were staying in the house, I'd suggest also putting up a No Trespassing sign facing his house. That is less of a good idea when you're trying to attract buyers. No sense raising any more red flags about the neighbor.
 
Disapointed we've not seen any mugshots posted due to fisticuffs.
 
Get a survey done, and make sure to provide one to the agent. Fucking around with the neighbor before he moves away will not end well for you, almost guaranteed. You also don’t want to do anything to mess up the value of your house (putting up keep out or beware of dog signs). It sucks but you might need to ride this out, stand your ground and get this asshole out of your hair.

Starting a fight with a guy literally moving somewhere, you don’t know where I am guessing, will only fuck your shit up worse. Small claims is meh, unless you catch him in the act of something nefarious.
 
You've received good advice about getting a survey. Your crazy neighbor has his house on the market, so the advice of "good fences make good neighbors" is probably unnecessary.

I am not one to care about dog poop in my yard; but I had neighbors on each side of me with two dogs, and they would meet halfway in my yard to rendez-poop. So with my dog, I had 5 dogs crapping in my back yard. That strained even my laissez-poop attitude. Fence went up. Problem solved.

If you do ever put up a fence, it cannot be put up on the property line, but 6" on your side of the property.

Zoysia grass is wonderful and I highly encourage my neighbor's zoysia to spread into my yard. If you're cool with your next neighbor, you can get a little donut cutter looking thing and transplant some pieces into your yard.
 
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