Property line issues

[Patrick Crehan]

Today, I started building a privacy fence at one of my properties. The properties in the subdivision are quite snug together and on the auditor site and deed it shows that the property line splits right up my neighbors driveway.

I had just finished digging the holes when the neighbor drives up and states, “did you get the property line surveyed for what you’re doing?”

I reply “well no, but the auditor site shows the line running up next to the driveway and so does the deed”

She replies “I am pretty sure you are about 1 foot into my property. Property lines typically run 2 feet off the driveway. When I go to sell the house, and your fence is 1-2 feet into my property, this could be an issue and I would have you take it up.”

I start thinking... what!?

Long story short, she states that I will have to hire a land surveyor to come by and mark the corners and boundaries to make sure I am not encroaching 1 foot onto her property. This will cost me about $750.

My question is, are there any other ways around hiring a land surveyor for a measly 1 foot of disputed property line? Do I even have to hire a land surveyor for this type of situation?

I live in cincinnati, Oh if this helps. Thanks guys

Pat

[JD Martin]

Nope, there's no way to avoid this. I'll tell you a sadder story than your $750 story so it will convince you to just get it surveyed.

One of my properties had a partial fence. We usually fence the back yards of properties as it's a nice feature for the homes. This particular property, the next door neighbor sees me out there and tells me "I know where the property pins are". He shows me a pin in the front yard, hammered flat (it split the driveways) and a pin on the back corner with a ribbon on it. He says he knows that's where the property lines were surveyed. Great! Now I don't need to hire a surveyor. I have my fence guy put the fence up a foot inside those two pins. Once the fence is up, the woman next door starts complaining that our fence is on her property in the back. I tell her that's where the pins are, she says her boyfriend (yes, not her husband as he represented) was mistaken. Her son says he doesn't care one way or the other but if they go to sell they want it taken down. Guy shows back up (apparently they broke up), sees me out there and says "That's not the right pin, I was talking about another pin". Sure enough, if you dug around in the weeds far enough there's a second pin back there - no ribbon or nothing. Fed up, I have my surveyor go out there. Guess what? My fence is over the property line in the back corner by 3 feet. It costs me about a grand to get the fence moved on that side of the property. My wife just laughs at me because she warned me that I shouldn't take this knucklehead's word for where the property line was.

Lesson: if you're putting up a fence on the property line, make sure you have a survey that shows exactly where the property lines are. That's also defensible if you get sued.

As a Paul Harvey "The rest of the story" finisher: I had my fence guy add fencing all the way from the back house corner straight through the "shared" driveway when I had to pay to move the fence, right up to the property pin. That had the effect of narrowing "their" driveway by several feet, since they had been encroaching on mine because theirs was too narrow. Now they can barely open their car doors, while my tenants have a nice comfy driveway that I repaved. So it had a happy ending after all :)