Neighbor thinks he owns my land?

[EddieWalker]

If they cant produce evidence that the line is where they say it is, then they would need a survey, wouldnt they? I have two stakes, a legal description, and a map from the last survey in 1997. If that isnt good enough, then maybe they should be the ones asking me if I would be kind enough to help pay for a survey.

I don't think you see this the way they will. Right now, they have access and use of more land then they own. They have grown to expect the use of this land and they will not want to lose access and the use of this land.

You going to them and asking them to pay money to prove that they cannot use the land that they use for free isn't going to be something that they will see as a good idea.

The other thing is that you don't know what they think is the boundry. They very well might think it's some place other then where you think it is, and proving that they have less land they they now think they have isn't something they are going to want to do either.

It's a Lose Lose for them.

Good luck with your meeting, but the very best you can hope for is for them to acknowledge that they are on your land and to agree to not go there any more. What will probably happen is they disagree with you and refuse to change what they are doing.

Since you don't know where the line is for sure, it's going to be an interesting converstation.

Eddie

 

[strum456]

Very interesting thread; an interesting read. As a surveyor for over 30 years I have seen my share of boundary problems and adverse possession issues.

In about 2008 New York changed their rules for adverse possession as follows:

ｧ 543. Adverse possession; how affected by acts across a boundary
line. 1. Notwithstanding any other provision of this article, the
existence of de minimus non-structural encroachments including, but not
limited to, fences, hedges, shrubbery, plantings, sheds and
non-structural walls, shall be deemed to be permissive and non-adverse.
2. Notwithstanding any other provision of this article, the acts of
lawn mowing or similar maintenance across the boundary line of an
adjoining landowner's property shall be deemed permissive and
non-adverse.

the key phrase being "permissive and non-adverse". The only way to claim adverse possession is a 'structural' encroachment such as a building. I recalled this as we had a bill defeated in the Missouri legislature that would have paralleled the NY law.
Strum seems to have several good suggestions as to how to proceed.
Just my 2 cents.

Ralph

I dont know if it is possible in forum like this, but I would love for you or dodgeman to explain how surveying works. What do you start from and how can you tell that those points are accurate?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

The latest update:

The surveyor came out and said that there werent enough points to go by on this end of the property. He explained that he would have to leapfrog from another area of the property with known points so he could find the line. As a result, his estimate increased 4x. I dont understand surveying, but his reasoning sounds odd to me. Especially since he was the last to survey this parcel, and he did the neighbors land too. He says he didnt do that part of my land, but I have a map and a legal description and they both have his name on them. I cant figure it out why, but I think he just doesnt want to do the job.

At this cost, I feel that the neighbor sharing the line should pay 50% of the survey costs, if a survey is needed. I decided to look up their number, but it is not listed. It looks like my dad and I are going to have to go knock on their door tomorrow afternoon. My intentions are to show the neighbors the maps and the stakes that I located and try to get them to agree on the line. If we cant come to an agreement, wouldnt it be fair that they help pay for the survey?

Most deeds in the USA do not physically match the property.

The surveyor knows he is about to be burned on your job so he matches his price to match his pain.

A survey by one party tells one side of one story. In your case you have been told your current points are no more than best guesses.

 

[westcliffe01]

Modern surveying uses GPS, so if you do pay for a survey based on the old references make sure the surveyor agrees to provide the GPS co-ordinates of each stake he locates. if that is documented in his survey, it makes walking the property with a hand held GPS much easier (even if less accurate) for visualizing the locations of the stakes. The surveyor should also bury steel stakes with his reference number on them, which can be found with a metal detector, even if the wooden stakes are pulled up.

Removing the stakes is a crime, so set some discreet game cameras with no flash just in case. The neighbor can't use your property while in jail..

I had a boundary dispute with my southerly neighbor on my 1/3 acre. We came back from a 2 week vacation and the neighbors driveway was apparently another 4 feet wider than before. There was an argument and we agreed to get a survey. The survey was just of a single line and cost $800, but it found the neighbor 12ft over the line. He ended up having to re-landscape their shrubbery so that they could get from the road into the garage. They later put in a concrete driveway right up to the boundary, which was his right. In winter he will plow snow off his driveway onto my yard, but he is not bothering us, since we don't actively use that area in winter anyway. At the same time, he does not call in complaints to the ordinance police regarding my loader backhoe and 3 trucks, parked outside when on 2 are permitted. Or the tent I keep the dry firewood under after summer.

So I will accept a little give and take, but not the kind of stuff the OP was referring to. That is bad news. The original owner of the lot my house is on had a surveyor out to look at the setbacks before he started building and found the road was out of position by nearly 100ft and ran through the middle of where the house was going according to the plan submitted to the township. After several meetings with the township regarding the road (it was not paved) he got mad, and had equipment brought in and moved the road himself. The neighbors to the south, who had their holding nearly doubled due to the original road position, filed a complaint. When the township re-surveyed, the road was still too far on our property (by 15ft) but the guy who had moved the road said he would accept it the way it was. Now every year the snow plows have been shaving the bend an additional 4 feet into our property by hugging the inside of the bend. So I reacted by going on a boulder search and have "filled in" the road side with boulders 12" to 2ft in diameter. That has had the desired effect (along with reflective fiberglass whips) of "getting their attention" if they deviate and the last couple of years things have been stable. I have watched some of those plow drivers deliberately ramming trash cans with their plows along several miles of county road. In 15 minutes he sent at least 30 trash cans flying.... The things we have to do to keep what is ours...

 

[EddieWalker]

Modern surveying uses GPS,

Are you sure?

Maybe it's a statewide thing, but from what I've been told, GPS isn't accurate enough. It also has a higher percentage of mistakes that lead to everything else being off. One mistake on the GPS, and nothing is correct.

Eddie

 

[strum456]

I dont know of any surveyors in my area that use gps.

 

[RobertBrown]

I dont know of any surveyors in my area that use gps.

They still use a theodolite, but you don't need that kind of accuracy right now.
What is it your trying to do....at this moment? Did you get a legal description?
There should be a starting point on that.

 

[Alan L.]

Title insurance normally doesn't guarantee what is on the ground matches the legal description they go by.


.

Seems title insurance really covers next to nothing. What a racket this is, getting that huge premium every time property changes hands or gets refinanced.......

 

[newbury]

The latest update:

The surveyor came out and said that there werent enough points to go by on this end of the property. He explained that he would have to leapfrog from another area of the property with known points so he could find the line. As a result, his estimate increased 4x. I dont understand surveying, but his reasoning sounds odd to me. Especially since he was the last to survey this parcel, and he did the neighbors land too. He says he didnt do that part of my land, but I have a map and a legal description and they both have his name on them. I cant figure it out why, but I think he just doesnt want to do the job.

At this cost, I feel that the neighbor sharing the line should pay 50% of the survey costs, if a survey is needed. I decided to look up their number, but it is not listed. It looks like my dad and I are going to have to go knock on their door tomorrow afternoon. My intentions are to show the neighbors the maps and the stakes that I located and try to get them to agree on the line. If we cant come to an agreement, wouldnt it be fair that they help pay for the survey?

So you have a 15 yr old survey and a couple of stakes.
And

I bought this section a couple years ago. It boarders our farm and was origonally part of our farm back when my grandfather bought it. I was fortunate enough to buy it back from who my grandmother sold it to.

The problem: A neighbor has been using a wooded acre or so as if it is theirs for some time now. They have a camp fire, a couple tree stands, and other stuff on what is now my propertly.

and the original surveyor can't accurately resurvey what he originally surveyed.

How much do they charge for a survey in your neck of the woods.

I had a 16 acre section done for about $100/acre. Sounds like you have got about 1 acre in dispute. One acre is only about 210 feet on a side. How long a boundary are you being violated over?

It seems you don't want to talk to them but you need to. Before you do hide some markers so you can find the stakes in case they decide to move them and take LOTs of pictures.

A further complication is that it's a boyfriend of the neighbor you will probably be dealing with.

As my wife would misspeak "He doesn't have a pony in this fight".

Tell them you've got two points and the description and you are going to put a fence up. Don't tell them when, just start it at your own pace.
No matter how it works out, with the fence you will establish a boundary. If you want to continue to allow them access let them put in some good gates.

 

[westcliffe01]

Have you watched the discovery channel regarding how they monitor volcanoes ? They can detect movement of less than 1mm. These are not consumer grade GPS devices. Instead this is similar stuff to that used by the military to put bunker busting bombs through windows. It requires special licensing for the more accurate stuff that geologists use. Same type of technology as what is used by commercial earth moving and civil engineering people to level or grade sites to precise tolerances. Again one is talking about less than 1/2" accuracy. This stuff is more than we ever need for boundary line disputes. The surveyor who came out to my site had one. They will never land a survey for any commercial job if they didn't have it (at least in cities).

Determining Your GPS Needs (this is not the most accurate, but portable)

Definitions
Accuracy
Signifies the absolute nearness of measured quantities to their true values.
Occupation Time
Time you should remain at a location, logging GPS data. Occupation time can vary from 1 sec. to 1 hr. depending on application, environment and receiver design.
Environment
Surrounding environment such as trees, water, land or natural / manmade canyon.
Control Surveying
A control survey determines the coordinates of selected reference marks in certain geographic region. Control surveys normally produce very accurate coordinates, which use procedures that are time consuming and expensive.
Static Surveying
Static surveying requires simultaneous observations of at least 5 satellites. Data collection time is usually between 45 - 60 minutes, depending on atmospheric conditions and the number of satellites. Static surveying yields baseline components that are precise to better than + .5 mm + 1 ppm. Recommended base line limits are 40 kilometers or 24 miles or less.
FastStatic Surveying
FastStatic surveying requires simultaneous observations of at least 5 satellites. Data collection time is usually between 8 - 15 minutes depending on atmospheric conditions and the number of satellites. FastStatic surveying yields baseline components that are precise to better than + 1 cm + 1 ppm. Recommended base line limits are 20 kilometers or 12 miles or less.
Kinematic Surveying
Kinematic surveying requires simultaneous observations of at least 5 satellites. Data collection time is usually between 5 - 30 seconds, depending on atmospheric conditions and the number of satellites. Kinematic surveying yields baseline components that are precise to better than + 1 cm + 1 ppm. Recommended base line limits are 20 kilometers or 12 miles or less.
Topographic Surveying
Topographic surveys gather the coordinates xyz or xy of all essential points in a region of interest to produce a map representing the Earth or part of it.
Mapping/GIS Data Acquisition
Mapping / GIS Data acquisition is similar to topographic surveying, the emphasis is on efficiency rather than accuracy. Data collection time is usually between 1 - 30 seconds depending on atmospheric conditions and the number of satellites. The most significant difference between topographic surveying and mapping is that both coordinates and feature attribute information are collected at the same time. The data collected and stored on the data collector in what is known as a GIS compatible format. Features are represented using points, lines or area type entities.
DGPS
Determination of relative coordinates between two or more receivers, which are simultaneously tracking the same GPS signals. The purpose of DGPS is to reduce or remove errors due to the satellite clock, satellite position, atmosphere condition and SA when active. Differential GPS can be performed either in a post process manner or in real time using a radio communication link.

Are you sure?

Maybe it's a statewide thing, but from what I've been told, GPS isn't accurate enough. It also has a higher percentage of mistakes that lead to everything else being off. One mistake on the GPS, and nothing is correct.

Eddie