You come home from work one day to see that your neighbor has started building a fence between your property and their property. They just got a dog, so you expected them to put up a fence at some point. You smile and wave on your way into the house, and then you don’t really think about it again.
That is, until the project moves along, and you start thinking that the fence appears to be a bit close to your house. Standing back to look at it from the street, you realize it’s actually on your property.
It’s clearly an accident, but you’re still concerned. You know that problems can arise with title companies and insurance companies if you try to sell your home and a survey shows that the fence is on your land. You don’t personally care about the few inches of land that you’re losing, but you don’t want to run into a lot of legal trouble in the future.
What should you do? Talk to your neighbor as soon as you can. If you both own your homes, you may be able to use a lot line adjustment agreement. That simply moves the line a few inches to avoid legal trouble. However, mortgage companies sometimes frown on this if either one of you still owes money.
In a case like that, where you need to work with the mortgage company, or in a case where it becomes a dispute between you and your neighbor, it is very important to know about all of the legal options that you have.