PrecisionMachinisT wrote:
In the process of my neighbor's development and sale of some property
adjacent to ours, a new water main was installed, and now appears one of our
corner survey stakes is gone due to excavation, trenching etc...
Actually he's a pretty good guy, and a new road was put in at considerable
expense just so I would no longer have to share my driveway...given that an
abandoned easment has gotta be worth something.......and even though I did
pay him a sizable portion of money to help share the cost of the new
driveway...
Any suggestions on what might be the best way to handle this before I even
get in contact with him about the need for having said survey stake replaced
???
TIA
--
SVL
I lost track of the stakes on my property during the 19 years since we
built the place.
A new neighbor moved in next door a couple of years ago and had
landscapers excavate some of the slope down from the part of my backyard
we use and also install some stone retaining walls, shrubbery and lawn
there.
I kinda had a feeling they'd come "over the line" but I kept my mouth
shut and hired a surveyor who staked out the place for me and gave me a
plot plan with numerous reference distances from the perimeter of our
homes foundations marked on it. (A $1,100 cost).
Once the stakes went in I took a whole bunch of photos from various
angles showing them in relationship to fixed objects so I'll at least
have a little better reference if I get curious again in the future.
I had remembered correctly. One of the freshly planted corner stakes was
stuck into the neighbor's new lawn and portions of the masonry work he'd
had done wwere clearly about five feet onto my side of the line
separating us.
I'd only met the neighbors briefly a couple of times when we waved hello
to each other, but I looked up their names. Their phone was unlisted so
I made a polite attempt to put things right by sending them a letter
describing the situation and offering to sell him the property he was
using for its tax assessed value (About $5,000) if he paid the
associated titling and registration costs, or I would "rent it" to them
for just the aportioned property tax I'm paying on that bit of land.
(About $100 a year.)
The husband played Denny the Dunce and when I saw him outside a month
later and pinged him about it he mumbled something about having to hire
his own surveyor before he could give me an answer. Two months later I'd
heard nothing further from him.
Our lot happens to be "Registered Land" here in Taxachusetts, which
according to my lawyer is a higher form of land documentation not
subject to anyone gaining rights to continued use through adverse
possession.
My lawyer (wisely I think) advised me not to get into a legal ****ing
contest with that skunk because the costs would likely exceed the value
of that bit of land, which I wasn't using anyway. Because of the eight
foot drop down a steep slope from my backyard down to the neighbor's
backyard the land he grabbed looks like it's part of his lot anyway, so
I would come out seeming "the dog in the manger" if I started a lawsuit
over it.
I'd much rather not have to live next door to someone I was in a
declared feud with, so I just explained the registered land thing to the
neighbor and told him he could go on using it, but with the risk that a
subsequent owner of my lot might not be of like mind.
However, I must confess that the devil has made me start dumping every
bit of my vegetative garden trash, up to and including small tree
branches, over my fence onto what's still my land so that the neighbor
can suffer a view of what I can easily say I was using as my composting
area for years before they moved in. It's even better if he happens to
see me while I'm tossing another trash barrel full over, so I can wave
cheerfully to him.....and he's obligated to respond. (I conjure up
mental images of living in olde England, opening my bedroom window, and
dumping a full chamberpot onto the head of someone on the sidewalk two
floors below.)G
**********
All of which reminds me of a quote I read earlier today:
We receive three educations, one from our
parents, one from our schoolmasters, and
one from the world. The third contradicts
all that the first two teach us.
Charles Baron De Montesquieu (1689-1755)
**********
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."
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