driftpin
Well-known member
I was reading this thread 'how to find property marker behind house'
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7025114&posted=1#post7025114 and in the course of reading, I saw where mention was made about an adjacent property owner placing her-own 'property stakes' onto the contiguous property owner's land.
I decided that my response should be another thread. Here is a similar issue we encountered. It's in the Miami Florida metro area.
We have a house in an area of expensive homes. Our home has been 30 years under the same ownership. The adjoining neighbor was an elderly widow who built the home and raised her family there, and she 'aged-in-place.' The adult children are gone.
The original owner in the house she & her husband built, died. The two adult children sold the property, a larger residential lot in Miami-Dade Co FL. A Colombian woman bought the property, and did a 're-model,' where the building was demo'ed except for several walls and the slab, then there was an extensive series of new foundation work, walls, and the like. She built a partial two-story that towers over our single-family home. She also encroached into the rear setback, that's another issue.
When it came time for her to build a wall between her house and ours, she started to build it higher than allowed (a later issue, the layout issue for the foundation is below). She also encroached onto our property, her formwork (a later issue) and the foundation excavation was encroaching onto our property, a fact I discovered when the excavator started digging onto our property. We had just had a survey done, I knew exactly where the corner points were. I am a certified plans examiner and a lifesafety inspector, I know how to read a survey or a blueprint. Her excavator didn't know how to read a map, a survey, or a set of plans, or he just didn't care. When I confronted him about his excavation onto our property, he essentially told me to, "f__-off." I immediately went in and called the Building Dept and told them to get an inspector out here to settle the issue, as the excavating company was encroaching onto our property. I also called the excavating contractor of record, and he told me, "the crew-chief there is just using my equipment, he's renting it from me." I told him that he better get out-there and get his employee under-control as it would be the excavating contractor that we would be taking legal action against, as that's whose name is on the permit at City Hall (I checked, the records are online).
Within an hour one of the building inspectors showed-up, and stopped the work being done by the excavator. I met with him after he was done with the excavating contractor's employee running the backhoe, and informed him that when I tried to be a reasonable property owner of the adjacent property, the excavation contractor employee running the backhoe told me to "f__-off," and kept digging. That's when I called the Building Dept.
Later, the form work for the wall between our properties went-up and I had to call City Hall again, because again, they were across the contiguous property line with the foundation. This time, the site got red-tagged, and the property owner had to have a new survey done to establish the limits of their property. Turns-out the original home encroached into the required side setback, work done 50+ years prior. I had seen that when I looked at the set of construction plans, which I pointed out to the excavation contractor previously, and he ignored me.
When they poured the wall between us, they splattered the pour all-over the side of our house, so our new paint job (we were doing a complete renovation of our home at the same time) was defaced. They could have just hosed-down our wall when they were pouring to remove the splatter, but they didn't. I wanted to go after them through the city and legally, but my wife didn't. Our recently-painted house looks polka-dotted because of the splatter.
Forward a year+ and the next-door house hasn't been final-ed. The perimeter wall and the house only have primer, the perimeter wall primer has worn-off and the wall looks ugly. We painted the side to us, to make it less of an eyesore. She hasn't done the landscaping, the front yard is rocks and dirt, same for the backyard. She got the name of our landscaper, used him, and stiffed him on payment for months. He said he will never go-back though she has asked him to do more work. We think she ran out-of money, to complete the work, and the house is going back to the bank, it appears.
Any issues with encroachment, you have to address it immediately, and the first measure is to update your survey. Request that the corner points be tagged/flagged, and be sure that the pins are located, and are where they are supposed to be. The surveyor will use the legal description and a plat map, assuming the parcel is platted, to establish the property limits. That's what a PSM (professional surveyor and mapper) does, that's for-what you are paying.
I recently had the city come through the neighborhood, (another property)and install our new electronic-broadcasting water meter across the property line, so the corner pin location is actually part of the installation of the water meter. They removed our corner pin when the contractor doing the water meter placement sited the new water meter! I still have to deal with that.
Issues such as I described in these two instances are vexatious. They can ruin your day, be expensive to fix, and if you choose to ignore something similar, you may lose property!
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7025114&posted=1#post7025114 and in the course of reading, I saw where mention was made about an adjacent property owner placing her-own 'property stakes' onto the contiguous property owner's land.
I decided that my response should be another thread. Here is a similar issue we encountered. It's in the Miami Florida metro area.
We have a house in an area of expensive homes. Our home has been 30 years under the same ownership. The adjoining neighbor was an elderly widow who built the home and raised her family there, and she 'aged-in-place.' The adult children are gone.
The original owner in the house she & her husband built, died. The two adult children sold the property, a larger residential lot in Miami-Dade Co FL. A Colombian woman bought the property, and did a 're-model,' where the building was demo'ed except for several walls and the slab, then there was an extensive series of new foundation work, walls, and the like. She built a partial two-story that towers over our single-family home. She also encroached into the rear setback, that's another issue.
When it came time for her to build a wall between her house and ours, she started to build it higher than allowed (a later issue, the layout issue for the foundation is below). She also encroached onto our property, her formwork (a later issue) and the foundation excavation was encroaching onto our property, a fact I discovered when the excavator started digging onto our property. We had just had a survey done, I knew exactly where the corner points were. I am a certified plans examiner and a lifesafety inspector, I know how to read a survey or a blueprint. Her excavator didn't know how to read a map, a survey, or a set of plans, or he just didn't care. When I confronted him about his excavation onto our property, he essentially told me to, "f__-off." I immediately went in and called the Building Dept and told them to get an inspector out here to settle the issue, as the excavating company was encroaching onto our property. I also called the excavating contractor of record, and he told me, "the crew-chief there is just using my equipment, he's renting it from me." I told him that he better get out-there and get his employee under-control as it would be the excavating contractor that we would be taking legal action against, as that's whose name is on the permit at City Hall (I checked, the records are online).
Within an hour one of the building inspectors showed-up, and stopped the work being done by the excavator. I met with him after he was done with the excavating contractor's employee running the backhoe, and informed him that when I tried to be a reasonable property owner of the adjacent property, the excavation contractor employee running the backhoe told me to "f__-off," and kept digging. That's when I called the Building Dept.
Later, the form work for the wall between our properties went-up and I had to call City Hall again, because again, they were across the contiguous property line with the foundation. This time, the site got red-tagged, and the property owner had to have a new survey done to establish the limits of their property. Turns-out the original home encroached into the required side setback, work done 50+ years prior. I had seen that when I looked at the set of construction plans, which I pointed out to the excavation contractor previously, and he ignored me.
When they poured the wall between us, they splattered the pour all-over the side of our house, so our new paint job (we were doing a complete renovation of our home at the same time) was defaced. They could have just hosed-down our wall when they were pouring to remove the splatter, but they didn't. I wanted to go after them through the city and legally, but my wife didn't. Our recently-painted house looks polka-dotted because of the splatter.
Forward a year+ and the next-door house hasn't been final-ed. The perimeter wall and the house only have primer, the perimeter wall primer has worn-off and the wall looks ugly. We painted the side to us, to make it less of an eyesore. She hasn't done the landscaping, the front yard is rocks and dirt, same for the backyard. She got the name of our landscaper, used him, and stiffed him on payment for months. He said he will never go-back though she has asked him to do more work. We think she ran out-of money, to complete the work, and the house is going back to the bank, it appears.
Any issues with encroachment, you have to address it immediately, and the first measure is to update your survey. Request that the corner points be tagged/flagged, and be sure that the pins are located, and are where they are supposed to be. The surveyor will use the legal description and a plat map, assuming the parcel is platted, to establish the property limits. That's what a PSM (professional surveyor and mapper) does, that's for-what you are paying.
I recently had the city come through the neighborhood, (another property)and install our new electronic-broadcasting water meter across the property line, so the corner pin location is actually part of the installation of the water meter. They removed our corner pin when the contractor doing the water meter placement sited the new water meter! I still have to deal with that.
Issues such as I described in these two instances are vexatious. They can ruin your day, be expensive to fix, and if you choose to ignore something similar, you may lose property!
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