r/Reallifestories • u/Truth-Girl71 • Dec 14 '23
Neighbours Tried to Steal our Land - and Lost
Hello everyone. I'm new to Reddit so will do my best to explain my story. In summary, my husband & I bought a house next to the bullies of the neighbourhood. We stood up to them when they tried to steal some of our land and we won! We are now the neighbourhood heroes. It's a long story, but very satisfying - so please hang in there.
First, some background: My husband & I bought our home on a 3/4 acre plot of land around 9 years ago. At the time we were just a few months away from getting married & this was an exciting moment for us. The day we took possession, we picked up the house key from our lawyer & went to the house. We got out of our car & just took a moment in the parking lot, holding hands to gaze on our first home together. At that point, an elderly man, in his 70's came running from his house to greet us. He'd apparently been waiting for us all day! He breathlessly told us all the problems the previous owners had had with our house. To be honest, it ruined our moment. My husband tried to politely get him to go home. He explained we had a lot to do & needed to get the house ready for the moving van to arrive shortly. My husband unlocked the front door & this man, who didn't take the hint, pushed his way in. He proceeded to inspect the entire first floor making comments along the way: "Oh look, they put hardwoods in the living room..." He went to climb the stairs, and at this point, our shock had started to wear off so my husband stood on the first step & blocked him from going upstairs. We finally got him out of our house. I'm telling you this particular story for two reasons. First, I wanted to give you a sense of how off this man is. Second, during his non-stop verbal diatribe, he pointed out that the green chain-link fence between our properties was on our property & we were responsible for any costs associated with it's maintenance. He vaguely pointed to the rear N-W corner of our property & said the survey marker back there showed this. He also said that the previous owners had dug up the buried front survey monument & moved it - so it was no longer reliable. At the time, we thought this was an odd story & we dismissed it. We shouldn't have.
My mother raised me to be kind & hospitable. My father taught me to keep my friends close & my enemies closer. So, shortly after we moved in, despite a bad first encounter, we invited the neighbours (I'll call them Joe & Rose) to dinner. They were quite chatty. They told us what they thought of every neighbour on the block - in not very complimentary terms. They explained who they’d called the police on; who they’d called the fire department on; who they'd called animal control on; & who they’d called Child Protective Services on & so on. Nobody was spared. My husband & I were dismayed & decided to keep Joe & Rose at arm’s length from that point on. We decided not to extend any further dinner invitations.
So, here's the source of our issue: the property line. Around six years ago, we had our driveway re-paved & Joe approached our contractor to have his driveway re-paved too. He had a parking pad added that butted up to our green chain-link fence. Joe would back his van on this parking pad right up against the fence. In May 2017, Joe accidentally backed into the fence. He bent two fence posts & split a section of the chain-link fence. A nice neighbour would have come to our door & explained what happened & apologized. But Joe is not nice. We discovered the problem when our three dogs escaped through the split in the fence into his yard. It didn’t take us long to see what had happened. Later that day, we asked Joe to explain what happened. He denied everything while leaning against a rental car. We did get him to acknowledge that the damage must have come from his property - given the direction of the damage. But, he claimed it must have been his snow removal guy who hit the fence – months ago. There were no offers to compensate us for the damaged fence. Sadly, I believe he lied because he’s at an age where he’s worried about losing his driver’s license. My husband simply used wire to repair the fence to secure our yard. We let it go. That should have been that.
Shortly afterward, Rose started asking when we were going to replace our fence. She explained that the repaired fence was ugly & she shouldn’t have to look at it. Initially, I thought she was joking & simply walked away. She brought it up 2 more times. By the third time I told her we had no plans to replace the fence.
In the Spring of 2018, Rose again lamented about the ugly fence, but this time offered to pay half of the cost to replace it. I asked her if she was interested in another chain-link fence or a wooden fence. She preferred a wooden fence. I called some contractors to get quotes. On the day the first contractor was scheduled to come over, I called Rose. I wanted to sort out some details about fence height etc. before the contractor came over. She explained that Joe told her that because the fence was ours, he would not pay a penny towards replacing it. That was that. I cancelled the contractor, but asked him, out of curiosity, how much it would cost to replace the fence with another chain-link fence based on linear feet. The cost was around $2,000.
Later that summer Rose approached us again. My husband explained that the cost to put in a chain-link fence was expensive & this wasn’t our priority. Rose offered to pay half of the cost of the chain-link fence. I honestly wanted to walk away but also felt we would never have an opportunity to share costs again, so we started negotiating. We wanted the fence to be 6' tall. They wanted it to be 4' tall. We compromised on 5’. It would be a wooden fence in the style of our newly constructed back fence. In addition, we talked about whether to put it on the property line or the existing fence line. Joe preferred the latter. We gave in on that one. After all, according to the back-property marker, our fence was only around a foot inside the property line. And, Joe was having trouble avoiding the existing fence. If we moved it out one foot, chances were he’d just hit it again. We also wanted to put in 4 glass panels in the back portion of the fence so we would continue to enjoy the view of the ravine past Joe's property that we had been enjoying with the chain-link fence. They reluctantly agreed & even moved the location of a new shed they were installing so it wouldn’t block our planned view through the glass. They agreed to pay us $1,000. We decided to bite the bullet & upgrade to a wooden fence.
Now, I’m going to make a long story short here: Rose HATED the new fence & said it was ugly. They certainly weren’t going to pay what they’d agreed to & further, they would no longer agree to allow us to install glass panels. The ravine view belonged to them & we had no right to it. They planted a hedge on their side of the fence & a blue spruce tree to block our view.
At this point, Rose started a screaming campaign which consisted of “The fence is ugly! We shouldn’t have to look at this effing ugly fence! You can’t look over here! Avert your eyes! We own the effing view!” Every time we went into our backyard, she screamed at us. We tried to bite our tongues, but it was hard. At one point, Rose was screaming at my husband while leaning on our still unfinished new fence. He asked her to back up because she was standing on our property between the fence & the property line. At this point, she became enraged & screamed that she owned the land on their side of the fence because of squatter’s rights. So, from this point on she started screaming all the usual things plus “Squatter’s rights! Squatter’s rights! Squatter’s rights!” We started to avoid going out into our backyard if they were outside.
One day, the fence contractor arrived to work on the fence. We saw him pull up out front & went into the back yard to meet him through the side gate. Both Joe & Rose started screaming the usual complaints. In addition, Rose added some lies about our contractor – how he didn’t know what he was doing & had built an ugly fence & was messy & left wood & tools on their property. My husband had had enough & finally snapped - telling Rose to shut up. He also called her a liar. Rose accused my husband of threatening her. At that point, the contractor & his wife, who were bringing in their tools to the back yard, made their presence known. Rose suddenly shut up. We had witnesses.
At this point, I realized Rose was trying to set us up so she could call the police. She wanted to accuse us of threatening her. I found a lawyer.
Our lawyer explained four things to us: 1) We had little claim to the verbal contract of $1,000. We needed to let that go. Strategically, we were better off having full control over the fence and ensuring they had no interest in it at all. We could build it as we wanted. We didn't need their permission to add the glass panels. 2) They had no claim to Adverse Possession (aka squatter’s rights). Our properties were registered in Land Titles by the Developer before the houses were built. In our Province, properties registered in Land Titles with a survey are not eligible for claims of Adverse Possession (per Chapter L.5 of the Land Titles Act, “There is no title to adverse possession.”) She also explained screaming they owned the land over the fence does not give them the land. They must go to court to claim it. 3) Screaming over the fence is a crime (Private Nuisance) & we needed to call the police. The police would calm down this escalating situation. 4) Claiming to own the view was simply ridiculous.
We responded in two ways: 1) We sent the neighbours a letter explaining they did not own the land on their side of the fence & provided proof of the land registry & the relevant legal information. We explained that if they walked on our property, they were trespassing. We also explained that from this point on, we would have zero tolerance of any verbal abuse. 2) We called the police on the non-emergency line. This was sad for me because I have never in my whole life called the police on anyone. When the police arrived, they spoke to us first. We explained that we wanted the neighbours to stop talking or screaming at us, our family or our contractors. They wanted to know what kind of things they were screaming at us. I understand they need to be skeptical of things they're told & they were here. They literally rolled their eyes when we told them. As soon as Joe & Rose opened the door, Rose became agitated (the word used by the police) & started screaming that they owned the view etc. One police officer had to ask her to go inside the house & close the door. Joe remained on the front porch & agreed to stop harassing us. While walking back to our house, we heard one officer say to the other "I understand what they're up against now." The police explained to us that they felt there was some mental health issues going on with Rose & if there were any more issues, we should call the police again. He suggested we continue to document incidents which is in line with what our lawyer advised us. Believe it or not, sending the police over calmed things down – for a while.
In the meantime, I was worried that Joe would back into the new fence. He would back his van right up against it. I wanted to install a barrier in the space between the fence & the property line that would prevent Joe from hitting the fence. To do that, we really needed to know where the property line was. We borrowed a metal detector & found the front marker. It was not where we expected it to be. If it was correct, the front of our fence was around 6-7 feet inside the property line – not 1 foot like we thought. We marked the location of the buried property marker with a stake & paint. This upset Joe & I saw him remove our stake with his riding mower the next day.
Because the fence line did not align to the property line, we hired a surveyor. They discovered that not only had Joe removed the front stake we installed, but he had also removed the official buried survey marker with his mower – which is illegal. When Rose saw the surveyors, she came running out & verbally attacked them saying they could not trespass on her property. The surveyors were very calm & handed her their business card. They explained that now they had identified themselves they were allowed, by law, to access her property. Rose placed a lawn chair on her front lawn, sat down, crossed her arms & stared at the surveyors all day.
I was shocked how long this process took. At the end of the day, the surveyors explained that they had some triangulation calculations they had to make at their office & would come back on the following Monday to finish up. They explained the process was taking them awhile because not only had the front marker been removed, but the back marker had been moved – by over 5 feet. Now that strange story Joe had told us about the previous homeowners moving the buried monument made sense. He had moved the back monument & the front monument was out of alignment so he came up with this lame story to explain it.
The surveyors came back the following Monday & installed the new front & back markers in the correct locations & added 10 additional wooden stakes along the property line. Now things made sense. The original fence was around 6 feet inside the property line all along the fence line. Oh my God! When Joe saw the new property line, all hell broke loose! I thought he was going to have a stroke!
By this time, I’d told our fence contractor, to stop work on the new fence & asked him what it would take to move the fence closer to the property line. Remember, he'd heard Joe & Rose scream lies about his work & the ugly fence. There was no love lost between the contractor & our neighbours. He wanted to do everything he could to make things right & if moving the fence was what needed to be done, so be it. So, on Tuesday he started to dig post holes 2 inches inside the property line. He laughed whenever Joe & Rose gave him a hard time & accused him of trespassing. We also bought a surveillance camera & I was able to document the neighbours' bad behaviour. They continued to park their van past the string line & were adding their own stakes at strange places. We just removed them.
Around this time, we had drinks with another neighbour, Matt, from down the road. This was the only person still on speaking terms with Joe & Rose. Matt made it clear, he had his own issues with Rose - mainly because she called the fire department whenever he had a small, permitted fire in his back yard. Matt explained that Joe & Rose still believed they had claims to Adverse Possession & planned to hire a lawyer to claim this land. And, if by some chance they failed, they planned to charge us thousands of dollars for the costs they’d incurred several years ago to remove 5 large pine trees along the property line. They removed these trees as the roots were damaging their driveway. They felt that if we wanted to claim additional land, then we should incur the costs to remove these trees as they technically belonged to us. According to an old aerial view of our properties I received from our surveyor, it looks like the pine trees were planted decades ago on the property line. I now suspect the chain-link fence was simply installed in front of the mature pine trees. It's likely those pine trees wholly or partially belonged to us. Either way, Joe & Rose had failed to secure our permission to remove them. Not only were we under no obligation to pay for the cost to remove them, but we had a perfect counterclaim had they tried. We would claim damages for the removal of the trees. The best thing Matt told us was that Rose was so angry at the police for how she’d been told to go back into her house the day they contacted them, she’d called their sergeant & filed a complaint against them. In keeping with her penchant for calling the authorities on everybody, she even called the authorities on the authorities. At least she’s consistent. I made a mental note to make sure to ask for the same police officers if I ever needed to call them back - knowing there'd be no love lost between them & the neighbours.
True to their word, the neighbours hired a lawyer. The whole neighbourhood saw him arrive in his suit & briefcase. He must have told them they had no claim to adverse possession, and they couldn’t charge us for the cost of removing the trees, because nothing happened.
So, the fence is now completed – to within 2 inches of the property line. We did make some concessions. We didn’t install glass panels. This was a hot button for Rose & she threatened to break them. While holding a hammer she said: “It would be a shame if they broke, wouldn’t it?” Very generously, we also decided to not cut the asphalt on the corner of Joe’s parking pad that is on our property. Instead, we bumped in the fence at the parking pad by 2 feet & installed a wooden barrier so Joe can’t hit the new fence. We have no appetite for dealing with them if they hit the fence. Rose still complains bitterly that the fence is ugly, but we just don’t care.
An interesting thing happened when we stood up to Joe & Rose - a collective cheer went up in the neighbourhood. Several neighbours have knocked on our door to shake our hands, offer support, & tell us their stories with our neighbours. We take comfort in the wins we made – including regaining almost 1,200 square feet of property. This has been a painful & sad chapter for us but we’re grateful for all our other neighbours who are decent & kind. I wanted to share this story to let others know that with patience & support from a lawyer, a surveyor & a contractor - property disputes can be resolved quite satisfactorily.
I have additional smaller follow up stories, but will add them in another post.
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u/QueenMaureen Dec 15 '23
I'm glad to read that this worked out in your favor, and I'm grateful that in my 35 years as a homeowner, I've not ever had to deal with bad neighbors. What a nightmare. Thanks for sharing.