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[email protected] hrhofmann@sbcglobal.net is offline
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Default fence issue with neighbor

On Friday, August 9, 2013 2:42:55 PM UTC-5, leza wang wrote:
Hi I just would love to hear your opinion about this. There is a fence between our house and neighbor. None of us build the fence. We bought the houses and the fence was/is there. The neighbor are now doing waterproof the basement. So they are digging the area close to fence. They asked me if I will allow them to move the dirt to my place (just easier than moving to the front of their house). I said no (I do not want to get all the mess, they are hiring unprofessional workers and this has been going for 4 weeks. These workers do not have even the right tools to do the job). Anyway, yesterday we were away when we came back we saw the fence boards are removed except the frame and the dirt moved to our backyard! (see pictures below please). I expressed my disapproval strongly to the workers because the owner/neighbor was not there. The workers said you are neighbor and you should help etc and they promise to removed it today and said they put blue tar underneath so my backyard will be clean after. I was angry with them because they did not take my permission but then I said OK fine because I want to keep good term between us. Today they said they can not remove the dirt and need another day. They asked kindly so I said that is ok but I want it to be removed tomorrow. I have the back of the fence (if you can see from the picture). It seems the person who lived before my current neighbor built the fence but not sure. Who really own the fence now? can each of us do anything with the fence without telling the other if they can do this or that? Thanks a lot. http://tinypic.com/r/25t7wy8/5 (my house is to the Left) http://tinypic..com/r/25g9bol/5 (my house is to the Right) http://tinypic.com/r/2432smq/5 (my house is to the Right)


I agree with earlier poster that you should stay on good terms with your neighbors. Also you should be very happy that they are trying to improve their property/house instead of letting it get into worse condition. With the new foundation, the house will be worth more money and that is good for the whole neighborhood.

The blue cover is tarpaulin, or tarp, for short.

You should have gotten a survey of the property when you bought it, and there should be some markers in the ground at the corner of the property. The survey should also show where the house is with respect to the property boundaries and you can then measure backwards from the house to find the property line. Your neighbor should be able to do the same thing and hopefully the two documents will agree on where the boundary is. The in-ground markers are usually iron and may be buried a few inches below the surface. You can ususaly find them with a metal detector since you don't have a large area to scan. THe survey should be within a foot of correctness so and area 2' by 2'is about the largest area you should have to cover with the metal detector. Hopefully you can borrow one fro a neighbor, or worst-case rent one for a couple of hours at a local rental center.