This is Why You Need a Property Survey When Buying Real Estate

She set the aggressive tone. You’d best get totally legal on her. She’s not going away. She’ll not stop.

if she puts anything on your property or has anything on your property, I would contact a lawyer and file to sue. It's your land, not hers. It's simple, "get off of my property."

You should really get her to move those utilities they're on your property. At some point you're going to need to service that retaining wall and have to ask her for permission to move the utilities. In essence you're granting her an easement.

I had a similar situation when I bought my home 20 yrs ago. My next-door neighbor was an elderly attorney who sent me letter after letter demanding I do what he wants along the property line, claiming I was encroaching on his property. I had the property surveyed (they had to survey the entire block as there were no survey stakes nearby). Turned out 6 inches of his driveway were on MY property. He saw the survey being done and survey stakes that were placed along the side of my property. I never heard another peep from him!! 😂

I'm a retired Licensed Land Surveyor and heavy construction survey engineer. You can stop adverse possession by sending a certified, notarized, receipt requested letter to the party in dispute granting them permission to use your property until such time as you tell them to cease and desist. Adverse possession is based on a number of years without interruption -- the clock must run continually. Granting permission stops the clock. Never, never purchase property without a legal survey.

She's the type of person who will sue you if something happen with that gas line, "because it was on your property". There are people who view a nice person as a target.

You should purge the wall on the other side and put in a drainage basin to the property line. It stops her from building on it and will eliminate the runoff issue. You don’t want to direct it to your residential wall or it will cause issues in the future. Why not take advantage of the excess land. And have her remove those utilities or you can be liable or loose your section of land where they are

If you let the utilities stay on your land, you are effectively granting a utility easement. Also, as a someone else commented what happens when you have to service or re-do the retaining wall.

You have to come hard at this woman! I had something like this happen to me. My new next door neighbor back hoed my whole front yard up thinking it was hers. She was going to remove my grass and replace it with a beautiful various color rock and boulder collage. I contacted an attorney and she advised me that I should stop her immediately and make restore the yard to it's previous grass or else after a few years she could attempt an 'adverse possession' claim on my yard because she made a substantial improvement to it. The earlier you fight the better for you! Don't wait until she is done then try to officially complain, because the judge may ask why didn't you say something when it first happened.

I always get a property survey. The house I currently live in was listed as being on about 2+ acres. The survey showed it is actually 3.75 acres

be a good person, but dont let bad people get away with doing wrong. the more you let it happen, the worse they do.

Report her to the department of buildings and tell the utilities they need to remove her gas lines from your property. Eventually she will encroach on your land and claim it as her own, adverse possession. Don't back down and play nice she definitely intends to take advantage of your kind nature.

I understand this is an older post. But I still highly I recommend you research the water act and the watershed act in your local area. For anyone else dealing with such matters - If the property you purchased was recently built I would make the builder or contractor correct any watershed issues. Because it is illegal, in most if not all municipalities, to force rain run off onto someone else's property. It is why you see retaining pond(s), aka "retention pond" on some larger developed properties. Otherwise the property could not handle heavy rain run off now that it has been developed and it could cause problems and/or damage to neighboring properties. I personally had to deal with this when a builder was putting up a new house on the vacant property next door to us. They were forcing their rain run off on to our property and using our drainage system vs paying for and building their own drainage system on their property. Our drainage system could no longer handle the extra rain run off and with a heavy rain storm, it would flood over 10' of our yard along the full length, some 200 to 300 feet long, of the property. DID YOU KNOW? One inch of rain on 1,000Sq Ft roof can yield over 600 Gallons of water. Now think about an entire house, parking lot and sidewalk - any and all hard scape. Where is that rain run off to go - now. All this and more was an eye opener for me when I had to deal with this type of situation. Good Luck to everyone who has to deal with this kind of thing.

Do not be “nice” that is how bigger problems arise. That Gas line is on your property and you have to be careful with someone using your property. Specially for utilities.

Agreed, she set the tone. I'd call the city and have them shut off any utilities on your property. She would have to pay to have those utilities rerun and reconnected which could easily be well over $6k. That would be a start of showing her that you are done with her Karen attitude.

You have to take extreme action against her. She's already been aggressive and set the stage for how she's going to approach it. Do not let anything slide.

The easiest and quickest way to resolve the problem of her retaining wall is to offer for her to sign a lease for that particular section of the wall for a specific amount of years, if not, she must remove the encroached portion of the wall. This way the lease is a continuous acknowledgement that it's your property and you are not giving up any of your legal rights to that property. With a lease agreement, she can't ever claim Adverse Possession in the future because she had the wall on your property for a specific amount of continuous years (time varies by what state you're in) and therefore claims it as her own as the law allows. In the lease you can also add in that she is not to add anything else to your portion of the property

Just so you are aware, it's entirely possible that she has her own survey done with a different surveyor and that one may come to an alternate conclusion about where the property line is. Most of the time the difference may only be an inch or 2. However some times there can be a significant gap or overlap. It often depends on how accurate the original parcel was surveyed as well as when the subdivision happened. Many cities (Jersey City comes to mind) have terrible issues like this and it can lead to costly legal problems. Don't pay bottom dollar for your survey people. You get what you pay for.

my neighbor did the same thing, right after I bought my house he tried to build a fence that was 5 feet onto my property... not 6 inches... 5 feet! I had a surveyor come out and mark the land and sent him a letter from my lawyer and he removed his fence immediately...

I agree with some of the other viewers that the demarcations need to made clear. Before your neighbor goes too far with construction, have your attorney get a cease and desist order from the court, present it to her, and correct the encroachment on your land.