Border Dispute Update

Well, I come home from town yesterday afternoon and the young fella that owns the dozer is standing with my neighbor in the middle of the road planning what they will do.

I thought that this would be a good time to see if we could work this thing out , so I stopped and had a long visit with them.

Evidently, I'm not the only neighbor that has been talking to him, because he was not in too good a mood and was cussing "everyone else" quite extensively & with a lot of 'red in the face' screaming.

He says one neighbor told him that he has to get all kinds of permits from the county to move a road; another let him know that he should have thought about these things before laying the footings for the building. Still another explained the costs involved to him for getting a road moved and that they would be more than the cost of his garage.

In fairness to him, I've got to admit that the road does jump the easement by about 10 feet on one corner of his property, does cut into him and runs right where he wants to build the approach to his garage.

I explained to him that the road was grandfathered in and was located here when he bought the property, but then I also suggested that perhaps we could make an adjustment to the road whereby it did not crowd him so much but that I wanted it done legally, done by a competent & approved contractor and not just done willy-nilly to suit his needs.

This upset him a little and he says that he is going to put in a fence right down the middle of the road to show everybody "who owns what". He spins on his heel and went into the house.

This leaves me talking with the young man who owns the dozer and I explained to him to just to be sure he knows what he is doing before he starts, as there are telephone, gas and water utilities running along the road and that if they are cut, he is responsible for them and all the costs of repairing such damage.

He then asked me then to explain to him what an "easement" was.

Give me strength,

Allan

sometimes the realistate agents will gloss over easements and other problems associated with a purchase to close a deal. its the buyers lawyers' responsability to point out these "problems" or details when a title search is done,,,,if it was done. the fellow has taken his money to purchase what he thinks is his land to do with it what he wants to do. now he is being told he cannnot do as he pleases with it. he's taking it to heart. its a natural, and also ignorent (sp again) position to take. he will be educated....and he will still be your neighbor. my advise is try as hard as you can to take the high road,,,,but always, always protect your landowner rights.... because between you and me there's always someone trying to take them away from you. i bet thats just what he's thinking right now... sometimes its just best to hire a lawyer to do your dirty work for you, so you can be civil to each other. real story. about two years ago a fellow here in virgilinia, virginia took a shotgun to a neighbor, the neighbors wife and the neighbors brother over a long standing fued over road rightaway. he's on death row in virginia so sooner or later four lives will be forfitted over preceived rights.

I guess that's along the lines of prescriptive easement. That's where no deeded ROW exists but the road has been in use for a long time. This is a part of Va law which says there is no such thing as land-locked land. All land has access, as every parcel was once part of a larger parcel that had public road frontage. The trick is to determine which parcel had the frontage and follow the subdivisions to figure out more or less where the easement will go. A judge makes the determination and it can be a costly mess, particularly when there's no existing road. All a part of buying country property, that can get complicated at times.

Your point about neighborly relations is a good one. I got a new neighbor a couple of years ago who wasn't very friendly. Called one Thur. night and wanted to know which day, Fri or Sat, would be better for me to show her son the property line so they could log. My first inclination was to point out that landowners usually call a surveyor for that. I reconsidered, and spent 4 hrs finding the pins. This was just so we could get a little peace of mind over their irresponsible logging. Then they put the place up for sale. Unreasonable price, so we still have the same neighbor. At least they won't be doing any more logging anytime soon.

Whew! Thanks for taking the time to relate that bit of info. I thought as much.

However, to the guys credit, we are trying to "work around" this little dirt problem. I don't mind giving a little in a situation such as this, especially since the darned road does drift over on him quite a bit.

But, it is like you say, this wooded property of his sat untouched by man until he bought it thinking that he would "just move the road" when he was ready to build.

I'm really trying to work it out with him, but I learned long ago, if you let one man walk on you,they will all give it a try.

Thanks again,

Allan

The 80 year old gent cannot move, build upon or encroach upon any easement or right of way. He cannot put up a fence down the middle because he doesn't own the rights to that property any longer.

He probably will not have difficulty getting his 10 ft corner back where the road encroaches onto his real property because the general law that allows acquiring property over long period use usually refers to openly used access via a road or trail over someone's property to another landlocked property for a certain number of years. There is already legal access in this case, so just confiscating his corner is probably a no-no.

The old guy, because he is building and shouldn't want any mistakes that could cost him, or perhaps the owners of the right of way, or all of them, should have the right of way surveyed & marked so everyone knows where the legal boundries are located. They should also get a copy of the right of way agreement at their County Office of Deeds or whatever it is called. The info I needed to get a copy of my Right of Way agreement was on my deed and it cost me $10 for a certified copy. Few people know exact locations of property lines unless they are still marked. Personally I'd give him his 10 feet back and get everything back to legal borders.

If he is allowed to move the road over on top of the utility easement and build on the other half of the easement, what happens if 3 years from now the utility comes in an says that they must tear up existing utilities and it will be 3 months before permanent replacements are installed. The physical right of way may be blocked and access to property is gone or difficult. At that point, resolving the problem may involve removing any structure encroaching onto the right of way. That's why there is a separate utility easement and separate access right of way. Call the utility company and let their lawyers talk to him if they even care. He essentially wants to force right of way owners to encroach onto the utility easement by moving the access right of way on top of it. Guess who the utility co. will go to if that happens?---The right of way owners who now have their road on top of the utility easement. More likely the utility will just tear up their easement to do the work and ignore that the road even exists.

They should nip this problem in the bud before it starts to cost some real money and get ugly.

Paul

You think just like I do. There is a right way and there is a wrong way. He was just going about it in the wrong way, is all.

We've had this area surveyed until the points are worn off the compass and everyone involved agrees that he has a point; the road is biting on him.

I just got back from talking to him and he is all cooled down now and is taking the correct steps to have this problem resolved.

He says the engineers from the utilities will be here to get it straightened out. Then he will be able to go thru the county to have the roadbed moved and moved in the manner as it should be moved, instead of with a youngster and a bulldozer.

He is a lot better neighbor this morning than he was last night and I think he now understands that there are just certain ways to handle these kinds of issues.

Which, makes me feel better about the whole thing, because dirt is only dirt, but if this guy gets all worked up and drops with a heart attack, then I’d have to live with that the rest of my life too. I don’t want that either.

Allan

--->Paul

The sad part about this whole mess is once the government has a reason to watch, they are darn hard to get rid of. And not just for the 80 year old. Anyone around him will be suspect of things they don't even know they have "things" about.

Nope. 'Taint no war as far as I'm concerned; I try my darndest to get along with everyone.

It is just that he is going to do this the legal way or he is not going to do it at all.

I own the property on another side of him as well, and when he moved in here he dropped a trailer house butting right up against my property line.

I don't think he wants me to make him move that house back away to building code specs, so I'm sure he'll listen to reason.

And so, on it goes,

Allan

No offense to any of the older posters but I just don't see an 80+ year old man digging fence post holes in the middle of the road. Let him blow his steam - and with any luck he'll blow a gasket and you'll have new neighbors real soon ;)

I think the kid is a little intimidated now the way it is. I really don't think he'll be back 'cause he knows he is in way over his head.

No, I wish nothing bad to happen to the neighbor; I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I just want him to understand that he can't operate like a bull in china closet. Just do it the right way is all that I am asking.

Allan

--->Paul

Yes, I explained to him the consequences of tieing into a road project and I think he now understands; hope so anyway.

Originally, his plan was to save the gravel, move the road over, put the origianl gravel onto the new road and charge my neighbor $1200 for half a days work.

"What water lines?", he asks.

Allan

In any event, let us know how this turns out.