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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-09-18 04:00:02+00:00.
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ginger_dominion
Neighbor’s shed encroaches on our property, preventing us from building our house. How do I get this finally removed after battling him for a year?
Originally posted to r/homeowners & r/AskALawyer
Thanks to u/theprismaprincess for suggesting this BoRU
Original Post July 3, 2024
My dad owns a vacant but desirable property in NY (neither of us currently reside there). He is passing the property along to me so I can build a house to live there. The property has been in my family since 1937. It took about $10k for him to get the title cleaned up with a lawyer.
Last spring I had a survey done that showed the neighbors shed encroaches on the property by about 7’ (setback is 12’, so needs to move around 19’ back). The neighbor even said to my surveyor that my dad “should just sell him the land”. With this encroachment my dad is unable to pass along a clean title to me, and without a clean title I’m not able to secure a home-building loan.
I was going to work with the neighbor to amicably remove the shed but he swiftly blocked my number and didn’t answer his door when I was in town last August. I looked into the town codes and the penalty for the violation is $100 a week. He also does not have a permit for this shed, which is necessary per the towns code of any structure over 120sqft requiring a permit.
Since I didn’t live there I got the city involved. The building inspector told him to remove the shed from our property. Neighbor ignored and refused for about 5 months. Then the building inspector had the city attorney write him a letter in January giving him 60 days to respond. The inspector has not given us a copy of the letter, we’ve requested it multiple times now so I’m unsure of what all was said in the letter. I’ve also requested that the inspector enforces the penalties as well as an injunction to padlock his shed for further use, those requests were ignored as well.
We didn’t hear back for about 90 days from the neighbor after the attorneys letter, but he agreed to move the shed. Woohoo right? He then said we need to get surveyors to pin where he should move his shed so he “doesn’t have to do it twice”. We have 3 different surveys of the property, and there are pins at each corner. I called our surveyor and it would be $700 to mark where he should move the shed. I felt that I shouldn’t be responsible for getting his shed into compliance, this is his violation and I’ve been patiently waiting and delaying an entire year. I don’t care if he isn’t within the full means of the 12’ setback, he just needs it off my property to appease me at this point.
Initially I was willing to get the surveyor out again and pay for it, but my concern is that if we do that he’s still not going to move it in a timely manner and keep moving the goal posts for us. Neighbor even said it would “take 5 months after we pin the property”. I don’t know why he thinks it will take 5 months to move the shed, I called around and got quote from shed movers, one said they could do it next week for $575.
I’ve got a lawyer in my back pocket who will be my last ditch effort. It’s expensive (a letter alone will be $1500) and will take a long time, so I don’t love that idea. He said we could do a revokable license for the bit of land, but I’m not giving the neighbor anything at this point. I want to put a driveway and definitely a fence there now too, so I’ll need that land.
At this point I understand why my neighbor is being a jerk, he wants to get away with whatever he can. But I CAN’T understand why the building inspector is letting him get away with everything. Why no penalties? Why no injunctions? He was very unhappy when I called the town clerk and asked for more information because the inspector doesn’t answer mine. He’s been so ineffective on this and it’s having real repercussions for us. We’re renting in HCOL area that we don’t like and would love to have made progress this year to move asap. The neighbor should have racked up at least $4400 in penalties so far (and an additional $2k for the 5 months he wants to tack on). I feel like that would invoke actual pressure for him to move it, right?
So what is my next step here to get this done asap? Is there someone above the inspector with the city that can help me with this? How can I get the town to actually enforce the movement of this shed and its penalties without being such wet noodles about it? Any ideas?
RELEVANT COMMENTS
TurkGonzo75
This is brutal. Once this is all settled and your house is done, you’re going to have to live next door to that asshole.
OOP
IKR?! We’re budgeting for a very big fence and flood lights.
~
slp1965
Does this neighbor have connections with the govt? Is it a “good ol boy” kind of place? Seems so fishy.
OOP
You’re not the first one to ask this EXACT same question with the same phrasing. I don’t believe so, I think the inspector is just ineffective but who knows.
~
Commenter
It’s on your family’s property, I’d burn it down.
OOP
Ha yeah, trust me. We’ve thought about that a million times.
AskALawyer Post July 5, 2024
EDITOR’S NOTE: OOP rehashes the OG post, editing that part out
So yeah, everyone wants me to burn this shed down, bulldoze it, saw it on the property line, or just move it myself. This is in a small town in NY. I don’t want to cause waves with neighbors and I need the building inspector to not hate me when I build my house.
I’m not going to destroy his property but I’m interested in the moving it myself part. Is it legal for me to do that since he’s been given so many notices and the town has ordered it to be moved. If I give him a notice is that enough or do we need to have an attorney write a letter?
My concern is that our neighbor seems like he’s got money to mess with us and I don’t want any repercussions falling on my dad. I’m afraid he’d sue for some kind of damages or trespassing or something… idk, he’s a jerk. Could we be held liable for this even if we give warning? What are my actual options here and how to go about this with the lowest risk of repercussions?
Update Sept 11, 2024
Original post here:
So a few weeks back I went to Home Depot and we bought a Sawzall. We went to the neighbor’s property in the middle of the night and, nehhh not really. For all you burn-it-downers and sawzall-it-sayers, my attorney said by no means do anything like that. He said DO NOT TOUCH IT. IN ANY WAY. EVER. So thank you to everyone for the solid and rational advice of talking to attorneys and – as frustrating as it is – utilizing our government resources as recounted below:
So I escalated this with the town and bothered them to no end. I got all the way up to the town supervisor and he was very frustrated on my behalf. I told him I’ve been dealing with this situation for a year, that the neighbor has been told to move the shed by the inspector and town attorney, that I’ve already had 3 surveys of the land to prove the encroachment, and that the property is properly demarcated with pins. He asked why the building inspector was having yet another surveyor go out there and said he would “just have someone measure where the shed needs to be moved using the survey”. He says he will personally get involved in this and will “give neighbor 1 week to get his shed moved”.
I get a call back with him later that day with a junior building inspector (taking direction from the senior inspector while he’s out of town) on the line and womp womp, he totally changes his tune. He said I have to get a surveyor to go out there to pin the property line again but specifically next to the shed. They could never answer me why it was my responsibility to pin a specific spot on my property for a shed that shouldn’t exist there in the first place solely for the benefit of the neighbor figuring out how far back to move his shed to get it into compliance.
I’m fuming now and I also figured out that the senior inspector forgot that I had sent him the third survey showing the encroachment in the spring which should have began the penalty violations. He also didn’t provide that to the neighbor who needed it and had been asking for it. He just thought I didn’t provide the survey. Even the junior inspector was embarrassed and frustrated for his lack of help and thoroughness with my case.
At this point I’m still adamant that I don’t want to get another surveyor out there, it will just take too long. I talked to a lawyer that would be less expensive than a surveyor and pretty much said this was a slam dunk win that would enforce the removal asap. We’re still trying to tread lightly though so we don’t piss off my future home’s building inspector too much with the threats of using an attorney, but w…
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1fjjz53/neighbors_shed_encroaches_on_our_property/
What a unnecessary pain. I knew it was 100% development obstruction because I have seen it before. Shame there was not anything more radical they could do to move this along faster.
At this point I’m still adamant that I don’t want to get another surveyor out there, it will just take too long. I talked to a lawyer that would be less expensive than a surveyor and pretty much said this was a slam dunk win that would enforce the removal asap. We’re still trying to tread lightly though so we don’t piss off my future home’s building inspector too much with the threats of using an attorney, but we desperately need results.
My dad’s an engineer and comes up with an idea that we present to the junior inspector. We’ll use the shed AS the property line pin to mark the setback for the neighbor. The shed is shown on the survey and we can see where the property line crosses through the shed, so we just need to measure and mark those places IRL. It’s stupidly simple and similar to an idea I mentioned months ago about measuring the setback from the shed, but they approved it. I used the survey’s CAD files to set up the measurements for where to pin the property line and 6’ setback lines. (In my last post the setbacks were at 12’ but changed at some point that month, another piece of important information that the building inspector forgot to mention to me.)
When my dad and husband went out to go mark the shed using line of sight they met up with the neighbor and he was SO unbelievably nice. Mind you, we’ve all been blocked, ignored, had our No Trespassing signs taken down, and been told in the past that we should just “sell him the property”. Now he’s making friends with my husband, giving him a tour of his house, talking scotch, sharing contractor info with him, etc. I’m BAFFLED hearing this and don’t trust it but welcome it for the moment. Then my husband tells me the neighbors wife is rude to him and pissed that we didn’t get the additional survey, didn’t like that we were doing it this way, etc. The neighbor hushes her and she goes off to pout the rest of the day.
My theory is that maybe the wife is the one doing all the blocking and snagging this up? The neighbor apparently had a heart attack earlier this year so I wonder if she took over his communications. When this first started last year they mentioned that they tried to buy our property so their son could live on it. Apparently it’s just HER son, his step son. I think she drove some of this conflict and he may be giving it up or just changing his tune after his heart attack. Ever since then he’s been friendly toward us which I’m relieved about.
So after the pinning of the property line and marking the 6’ setback the building inspector approved our work and then gave the neighbor ANOTHER month to get this scheduled with a mover and finally moved.
After about a month and a half I didn’t hear from the inspector so we gave the town a call. It had been moved!!
We went forward with our final survey to confirm that our land is clear of encroachments. It’s cleared, but neighbor only moved it 3.6’ off the property line – short of the 6’ setback. WTAF? I got a letter today from the building inspector saying he passed it and the case is officially closed.
I absolutely DO NOT care that it’s only 3.6’ back instead of 6’, I’m just glad he’s off my land and can now move forward, but seriously? I don’t know how this got approved but I’m in awe of the incompetence of the inspector. I guess I’ll just have to see what all I can get away with too.
Anyways, that’s my shed saga. Thanks for reading.
TLDR: I escalated the issue of my neighbor’s encroaching shed to the town, finally reaching the supervisor who sympathized with my year-long frustration over the shed encroaching on our property. Despite previous surveys proving the encroachment, the building inspector asked for yet another surveyor to pin the property, which made no sense.
After much back and forth, my dad, an engineer, suggested using the shed itself as a marker for the property line. Surprisingly, the junior inspector approved this. When my dad and husband marked the property line, the neighbor, once uncooperative, was suddenly friendly. After some delays, the shed was moved, though only 3.6 feet instead of the required 6 feet. Despite the inspector closing the case, I’m relieved it’s off my land and can finally move forward, though baffled by the whole ordeal.
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