Fence

It is the one foot space between my fence and their fence. Looks bad and could be a safety issue for kids.

I know I made a misstake not getting it surveyed. The neighbor agreed at the time Two years ago. I am trying to understand what you meant by this statement: Also, the surveyor's caps are set on iron pins that they set, meaning they didn't find one there. Do you mean the surveyor did not find the orginal pins? Ok then what is the surveyor going by to set his cap and pin?

> My concern is the saftey issue of two fences back to back not to mention how bad it looks from the road. Our houses are side by side. If I remove my fence, the neighbor will have no acces to the one foot of land because my yard is inclosed with a fence. Am I responsinble for the one foot of land or the neighbor? I consider the neighbors fence a spite fence. The neighbor showed me how my fence was on thier property they never said a word about me removing it.

My dad always said, "Never believe ANYTHING ANYBODY tells you, and only half of what they show you." (He just didn't say which half;-) ) Your neighbor "said" they had it surveyed; could mean they know a guy that works for the DOT and he came over and showed them where the line was for a case of beer.:-)

It's not "your" property line, it's a line you share. It could be a public right-of-way; government owned property like a park, etc.; or somebody just like you, living the American dream.

Generally, everyone has 2 lines; a deed line and an occupation line. We hope that these lines are close to each other, but that is not always the case. In your case; the deed line is about 5" off of a fence. Not a big deal, in most residential properties but I've seen it become a big deal and that is usually is driven by some other reason.

If you are concerned about the maintenance of the neighbors property that is on your side of the fence; then record an agreement saying it is theirs, but you will be responsible for maintaining it until the fence needs to be replaced. Then it will be moved on to the line. That way, ownership will stay the same and no one will need to spend any more than is necessary.

The only way to be sure, is to have a surveyor, licensed in Ohio, come out and mark the line for you. If your neighbor has already done that, then abide by the survey or hire somebody else to prove it wrong.

Well when the neighbor told me he wanted me to do this and do that and he was going to pour a concrete pad against my fence with out making a form. This is all before he did a survey. Not to mention he built his yard up so high with dirt and gravel he can now see over my fence. Kind of defeats the privacy fence.

Thanks

Now there are two fences mine and theirs back to back one foot apart. Looks bad. And I am concerned about kids getting between the fences and getting hurt or climbing the fences to go over into the pool.

Does your local city Ordinances say anything about spite fences, have you checked? What about permits, do you have one for your fence, does the neighbor? Sounds to me like you need to talk to a Land Attorney, not one with that as just part of the list on their advertizing but an Attorney recommended by someone who knows Attorney's who specialize in land law, most practicing Attorneys only know enough about land law to cause problems or compromise your rights as a land owner. You were talking above about Surveyors caps and the Tax Office stating that they are not aware of a Survey. Is the Tax Office where, Records of Surveys, are filed or does the Tax Office rep even know what they are talking about. Caps indicate a survey, recovered 1909 monuments may indicate the 1909 work if they are undisturbed. You have demonstrated to most that you need some local professional guidance, be wise and obtain it before this develops further. A land owner is expected to defend his rights, that means finding out what those rights are, determine if yours have been compromised and if so, how to defend them. If you built your fence on or very close to the line, let the one foot area grow up into a mess, then complain about a nuance and let the city deal with it. A letter to the owner next to you may get her attention enough to rein in her boyfriend and the problem will go away, odds are that boyfriend will soon move on anyway.
jud

I lined the fence up with the driveway. The pins were not there when I intalled the fence. After the neighbor had the surveyor put his pins in, it confirmed the drive was on my property. But, because the surveyor pins show the peoperty at an angle makes my fence over the line by 5 inches. Property records do not show this angle for any of the lots here.

No Ordinances or permits needed to install a fence in this town. I love this ideal: let the one foot area grow up into a mess, then complain about a nuance and let the city deal with it. A letter to the owner next to you may get her attention enough to rein in her boyfriend and the problem will go away, odds are that boyfriend will soon move on anyway. This is the talk from the other neighbors. She has been married three times. Boyfriend is putting all this money into a fence and a pool and does not own the property. As one of my other neighbors put it: he is a fool for doing all this and not the land owner.

What you are calling an angle is relative to something. Ignore any existing improvements as they were probably constructed by people who really didn't know where the property boundary lines were. Second, it is rare that front property lines and side property lines are actually perfectly square (90 degree angle). Third, all that really matters is where the surveyor put the survey monuments. Everything else is old news and has no bearing on today or the future.

Is their fence on their side?

If so, pull yours down would be my advice. Use the materials on another line.

Avoid attorneys, boundary litigation is very expensive.

What State are you in?

This is an easy one. You can argue and conjecture and fight with the neighbor all you want. But, you don't know anything yet, so it's all a waste of time. You need a surveyors opinion on your behalf. With that in hand, you can then argue with the neighbor based on a professional opinion rather than conjecture. The legal location of the line is based on evidentiary clues that are not limited to anything you think you may know about said location. Your input and knowledge is valuable in the process of a professional coming to a professional opinion.

However, you can't make a rational decision on how to proceed until you have a professional opinion. In fact, you may want a second opinion once you receive the first.

I understand your concern about safety.

I know, it's a real pain. But everything is when it involves competing legal rights and/or responsibilities. One can always rent if they don't want to have this particular problem.

Not the answer you want, but it's the truth.

And, I couldn't disagree more with this statement by another poster:

"Ignore any existing improvements as they were probably constructed by people who really didn't know where the property boundary lines were."

Those improvements may be the best evidence of the lines of the parcel. So, you can see that even professionals can disagree.

Shouldn't a Surveyor do their own survey before building a fence, just a thought.

:good:

Did you find any of them and measure?

A survey and plat from 1909 could very conceivably have a significant discrepancy between the perfect right angles shown on the map and the lines as defined by original monumentation and other physical evidence on the ground. And since valid physical evidence is controlling over map evidence, lots created by old surveys never match the maps exactly and often result in noticeable discrepancies.

It is not unreasonable or rare to find that the lots, based upon the physical evidence causes the lots to be skewed as compared to the map by a foot or two.

It is very likely that your neighbor's surveyor determined the location of the points he set based upon original monuments that he found in the vicinity. they may be at the corners of your lots, or they may have been several lots away.

This particular kind of discrepancy is fairly common because of the way the lot lines were run and the corners set in the original surveys. Typically in a block, they would have first established the block corners from the street centerlines or other control. then they would set the transit up on one block corner, sight the block corner at the other end, and then measure on line 50', set a pin, 50', set another pin, and so on until all the front lot corners were set.

They would then set the corners at the ends of the back line where they met the edge of the blocks on the side street, move the transit to one of these, sight the one at the other end of the block and then repeat the process of 50', set a pin...

The steel tapes that were used were graduated their full length in 1' increments with only 1' at one end being graduated into hundredths of a foot (0.01' is very nearly 1/8 of an inch). some of these tapes were "add" tapes, meaning that the smaller graduations were past the zero foot mark, and some were "subtract" tapes which had the smaller graduations between the 0' and the 1' marks. Holding "Zero" at the wrong end of the minor graduations was a mistake that was not uncommon. If the crew did not perform their measurements such that error checks were built into the process, the front corner monuments could easily get set with a 1' offset, or even at an accumulating offset along the block if the head chainman (guy at the front end of the tape) wasn't paying attention.

I hope that helps your understanding of how such a discrepancy might have occurred. As others have said, the only way to have a good level of assurance that as to your neighbor's surveyor's results is to hire another surveyor to independently verify them. If the houses and garages were built not long after the lots were created and the new survey line reasonably matches the locations of those improvements, then a second survey will most likely verify the results you are already seeing. If the improvements are significantly newer, they may or may not have been built with actual knowledge of the precise location of the lot lines as originally marked.

Edit based on Duane's closing comment in his post below, and the one that it references. I'm in agreement with Duane, don't write off the improvements as being good indicators of the original lines. If they were built at or near the time that the lots were created, they are usually excellent evidence as to the lot line locations. If they were built several years later, after there had already been a lot of development in the neighborhood, then their potential value diminishes significantly.

It's hard for anyone to understand the situation and make intelligent comments when you are giving the information in bits and pieces. I think we now know the following. Clarify if I don't have it right.

You installed a privacy fence two years ago, between your 55 foot wide rectangular lot (per original plat) and a neighboring lot in a 1909 subdivision in Ohio.

The fence was located according to what the prior owner told you about the lot line, and you had a verbal agreement with the neighbor as to the location of the fence, but knew of no property corner monuments to go by. This location is a foot from one of the garages (toward your lot from the neighbor's garage?).

Recently, the neighbor hired a surveyor, who put in corner pins with caps. The caps will tell who the surveyor was by license number that you can probably look up on a state web site, and might even have his name or at least initials.

That surveyor may be required to file his survey with the county (not sure about Ohio). If so, the tax map department is not where it is filed in most jurisdictions, although they might eventually get the information to update their system.

The surveyor will undoubtedly give you a copy of his survey plat, although he may charge a fee for the time to make the copy. That will tell you a lot more than you will ever figure out without it.

Capped iron rods indicate that they are newly installed, because the surveyor found no prior monument for that corner. One of the new pins is in an area you had dug in without finding any old pipe or rod monument, further indicating that it is newly installed.

The surveyor's plat will show what he measured from to place the new corner pins. I would hope that he found something in the neighborhood on each side of your two lots and did not come only from one direction, as that would not let him identify the typical small discrepancies that are common in older platted subdivisions. A foot or so difference from the 1909 plat would be no surprise. He should have proportioned any excess or deficiency between found monuments on each side.

The survey must be presumed correct unless you get another surveyor who disagrees, and get a court ruling. That is expensive, and causes hard feelings and further trouble, and usually not worth it for a sliver of land.

You say "The pin at the front of my property is not in alignment with the pin between the garages." but two points define a line. What is that line not in alignment with? Do you mean their line is not parallel to the (whichever) garage wall? Or that their line is not perpendicular to the street? Or something else?

You mention the pin "between the garages". Does it still make 4-sided lots?

Your fence aligns pretty well with the front pin installed by the surveyor, but the rear pin is 5 inches onto your side of your fence.

The neighbors installed a pool and their own privacy fence (is it taller?) a foot from your fence. That means it is well on their side the property line as recently surveyed. They don't seem concerned about losing the use of that sliver of land. They built up the area on their side of the fence. Your fence may not have been adequate to enclose a pool for their privacy and liability purposes. I see no reason to call it a spite fence.

You are concerned about having two fences that close together, making it difficult to control weeds and perhaps posing a hazard for children or pets. Would anyone object to you removing your fence? Would your side of their fence look acceptable?

If you remove your fence, a sliver of their lot (according to the survey) is on your side of their fence. It would seem like there would be no reason for you to refuse to maintain that little strip along with your own lawn. They appear to be giving you, free gratis, use of that land. You could politely ask them if it is ok for you to mow it or plant flowers on it. If relations are not already too soured, most people would agree to that. If they say no, then you need to learn your legal rights and their responsibilities.

If they are worried about losing that little strip to you (which they don't seem to be), all they have to do (in most jurisdictions) to retain their rights is send you a registered letter giving you permission to use it as long as their fence remains where it is. That would retain their right to move their fence to the line in the future (again speaking for other jurisdictions).

I don't think you have much of a problem. Now if they were asking you to move the fence a couple feet toward your house, you would have a problem. Since it's the other way, go with the flow.

My thought as well.

I don't think that Zebra is a surveyor.

http://codes.ohio.gov/oac/4733-37-05

Ohio requires a survey to be recorded, it appears. It should be out there somewhere.