Personal Consumer Issues • Encroachment reveled in land survey at purchase

I could see the neighbor or some future owner of that property saying, "Hey, we've scraped the side of our car on the house backing out a couple times. We noticed that our driveway is narrower than yours, which we thought was odd. We paid to have a survey done and found that the actual property line is 0.7 feet over onto your side of the curb. What we want to do is reclaim our 0.7 feet by ripping out that curb, relocating it to the property line and re-grading and re-paving our side. Will you sue us if we do that, or is it OK with you? Here's our survey to prove it!"

I mean that's the best worst-case scenario, I am an optimist but I also like to take all cases into account. Now what if it sounds like "What we want to do is reclaim our 0.7 feet by ripping out that curb, relocating it to the property line and re-grading and re-paving our side. We would also like for you to share the cost of the work, which is $10k each. Thanks"? Or worse, "you cover the whole cost given it's your driveway encroaching, not ours"?

And it's not only about current neighbors but new ones should the current one sell their property. AND more importantly, the fact that buyers of our property would be having the same issue I am with right now and ask for compensation from us for it.

I would make the argument that the 0.7 foot is part of the neighbors driveway, for all you know they paid to have their 0.7 foot paved at the same time the seller paved the the portion on the sellers lot so they wouldn't have to maintain a strip of grass or whatever. If they now want to move their curb to different spot in their own driveway, no problem for you. Just make sure to tell them not to screw up your driveway. i.e. make a clean cut on the property line and be careful on the removal.

Statistics: Posted by BigMoneyGrip — Sat Jun 29, 2024 7:37 am — Replies 80 — Views 5140