It sounds like your neighbors are quite certain that the lot boundary is three feet further in your direction than what your surveyor thinks...

Hopefully, the sheriff can convince them to chill.

On the side of a (very, very tiny) bit of sympathy for the neighbors, it can be quite upsetting to suddenly learn that property you thought belongs to you, doesn't.

Hopefully, they will mellow out a bit once the shock wears off.

Even though we had a surveyor confirm the corners and mark them with stakes, the rods there were the original from 1964 division short plat. These folks bought their place 10 years ago and the corners were marked. Tom

Someone told me recently that it is a crime to remove those survey stakes. I don't know if that is a state or federal law.

Pulling out survey stakes isn't that uncommon. I had a neighbour pull out the pins that were placed in "his" driveway. As if that changed the boundary! (No adverse possession in a land titles system.) And I let him pretend the half feet of the driveway was his.

Hopefully, your g.c. can find out what the problem is. For all you know, there may be a genuine adverse possession question.

And hopefully a display of police authority will calm him enough to leave this matter to a civil adjudication.

Good luck!

When the GC and sheriff showed up the lady ran to her truck and drove off. My wife asked them both what their opinions were. We forgot that only one of these corners had the original stake and someone could make a case that our surveyor's mark did not match the original. The deputy said that the fact that no one actually saw them do the damage may nix it as a criminal matter. So it's a matter of where do we want to put our efforts and money. Can't bring ourselves to take on a potentially money and emotion draining battle over a 2 foot strip of land neither of us are going to walk on. So we're just going to put our fence up using the corners they marked off. Hopefully this will establish a truce. A year from now we won't be friends with them but I think the emotion of this issue will be long forgotten while we enjoy our home. It's hard for me to swallow my pride on this but it makes no sense but to have life go on. Tom

I doubt the neighbors have any use for it as well but it's a funky possesion trip that some people have.They claim it's theirs and if it's that important to them, let it go at that. Wise move on your part as long as you dont have any plans for it.Our neighbors keep creeping "stuff" on our property, mostly hay and horse crap, but neither one of us really has any use of the immediate property line area.It's just convienent for them i guess, so we let it go.My wife is wanting to put a dry stack rock wall there at some point in the future,so i guess i'll be shoveling horse crap!

They've just made it clear that they don't want to see our house. If it weren't for that I do not think they'd ever cared about the fence line. They're really hot about our land clearing, with permit, and we still have a few more trees to go. Probably time for them to start planting shrubs on their side to block us out. At least on the other side's neighbor our fence line and corners were determined by the original markers which are still there and agree with out surveyor's marks.

I suppose two feet on acreage is equivalent to a few inches on the 15-18 ft. wide lots I used to trade in, and generally not worth fighting about. Shalom!

Trust me, you need to get the property line established. Your homeowners insurance will probably require this. If there is a fight while building it will only get worse later.

Get a new survey for $300 and the the fight will be over now and resale and forever. You own that two foot strip and are libel for what your neighbor does on it.

Think about it, you own that two foot strip. If the neighbor digs and causes damage to say the sewer. You are the legal owner, city, county and state wouldn't care that you let your neighbor claim ownership of the 2', you own it.

Legally establish lot lines.

I keep reading posts about neighbors who are upset because someone is building a house next door- what's up with that? If they wanted to prevent it, they should have bought the lot themselves. I'm a little worried about our new neighbors when we develop, since one of our corner pins is on his lawn, and his burn pile is well within our property line. Since he has 11 acres, I hope he doesn't try to pull any of this stuff. He also has a pair of scary-looking pit bulls that challenge us every time we walk our property. Somehow I need to politely inform him that I will be armed when working in the woods, and I WILL defend myself! The slightest sign of grief from anyone, and the fences start going up.

Sorry, lot lines are somewhere you just have to hold your ground. Ha ha ha ha.

No way I'd give. The beautiful thing about lot lines is that it's not you or your neighbors determination of where the line is. You automatically have a higher authority in the survey professionals. The argument isn't with you, as everything is in black and white on the legal descriptions. Now, if they produce a legal description and survey of their property that shows your legal description or survey are in error, then it'd be nice of you to concede. I just don't see the good in conceding now. You've got to hold your ground until you're presented with a valid dispute.

I would insist that the sheriff place a call or visit with the neighbor explaining that they're not allowed to do that and it'd be in their best interest to have their lot surveyed if they're concerned that you're doing something wrong.

It's just not reasonable behavior that these guys are displaying. I tend to not give an inch with folks like that, as they may push even farther in the next dispute.

FL Gargoyle, might I suggest putting up a construction fence, one of those that has green fabric woven into it so that you can't see through it? Then there is just the initial shock of the fence going up, and after that everything that's going on is mostly hidden, so the neighbors don't have the daily "What new horrid thing are those people doing today?".

My son is a surveyor in California. Under Section 605 of the California Penal Code it is a misdemeanor to intentionally remove or destroy a permanent survey marker.
But even more important....
If you do not get your boundaries settled now and allow your neighbor to continue using the property, it could in some states become his. My son has come across this very situation several times. Usually in the big cities where every back yard inch counts.

So here's what I've found out. In two of four corners our surveyor's marks did not match the original ones which are still at two corners. That's not an unusual occurance. And we hired our surveyor to mark the corners not to perform a legal survey to be recorded at the county. Remember that a legal survey can run $5000 and is much more than marking the corners. So those originals are the two markers that were there when I purchased the land. Attorney says that those are the one's which the county and court will accept as the legal corners. The other two corners without the original marks are then determined by the existing two originals, not by where our surveyor put markers. So we could spend a lot of time and money on this and end up with the line the neighbors ran. Their behaviour is terrible but that won't do a thing for us in court. Tom

I guess it is wise to go by the book. These days it's "legal and binding" rather than good 'ol boys disputing property ending up resolved by a handshake.Maybe we should consider this concerning our neighbors as well, it's just that it is way too laid back there to think anything would ever come of it legally,(by them laying claim to what they have been using), but i guess it could happen.

Threads like this are kinda stephen king'ish or could be considered as violent content. It's amazing what goes on in peoples "hoods" even when out in the boonies!

Surveying in this area is not so expensive as the $5000 mentioned. Many years ago, I tried to be the nice guy twice with respect to two different adjoining property owners. Through my inaction, I lost one part of the property. On the other, my lawyer did file a suit. Rather than fight the suit, they signed a quitclaim deed. Case settled out of court. No more problem. Remember, the burden of proof is on the one filing the suit. The other side must only successfully refute the proof offered in order to prevail. Such cases are proved by a preponderance of the evidence. A licensed/registered surveyor could/would be your star witness. Take good notes, take pictures. Get a copy of the Sheriff's report. If you are confident of your boundary, fight for it. I wish I had done so from the beginning. If you are really confident about your boundary, try to find a way to goad them into filing suit. If the facts are on your side, winning will then be easier.

When we had our 10 acres surveyed we found that the 80 some year old lady beside us has been mowing about 5 ft over her lot line and her shed extends over onto ours by a couple of feet. We put up posts where the survey pins were but doubt that we will do anything else. She is a very nice person and I can't see any harm being done. When she passes or sells the property we can take back our portion. Better yet, I would like to buy hers because our land surrounds her on 3 sides.

You need to get this resolved as soon as possible. Depending on your state laws, adverse possession can be a very real possibility. The other problem comes at the time you or your family tries to sell, refinance, etc., your land now is full of encroachments. This can take months and a great deal of money to fix in the future. I would shop around for another surveyor and get a better price.

Good luck

Like I said earlier I am not there. As things calmed down I got a clearer story and our attorney's advice. First, the corner pin from the original development of 1964 is a couple of feet inside our parcel from what our surveyor's pin is. They are using this original pin for the starting point of their fence posts. The other end of their fence posts is in the right spot if you use the pin from where they started. Our attorney says that the original 1964 pin, the one there when we purchased the property, is the legal corner and not the one our surveyor put in. According to him there was a property line established by this pin in our NW corner and another in the SE. He said that our surveyor's corners are probably physically more correct than the old pins' locations but regardless the old ones set the line. If there was an encroachment issue or an adverse possession issue they were being caused by us and we do not have the right to establish new corners that are different from the original. And then he pointed out that there are two additional properties using that pin for their corner marker. So basically he said that as far as the line location goes our neighbor is right and we're wrong. Tom

Ellied, chances are overwhelming that the new owner (if it is not you) of the elderly lady's property will be overjoyed to claim the strip of land that you describe. Her heirs may include it in the deed in order to increase the acreage a bit- increase the revenue from the sale. If you are happy for her to have it, just deed it to her now. If you wish to retain ownership, write a simple lease and have her sign it. Charge $1.00 per year. Do one or the other now. I saw the mess resulting from a similar case near here.

I always thought one facet of adverse possession is that it must be "adverse". Open and notorious, and against the wishes of the land owner...

It can occur if the real owner is just ignorant of, or ignores, the location of the boundary. Adverse does not mean hostile, but hostile would certainly mean adverse.

Tom, there's nothing like a good, trusted lawyer to put things in perspective for you. It doesn't change the fact that your neighbor is behaving like an ogre, but at least you can have peace of mind that you handled the situation well, with no "should-haves" to consider in the future. Dispute resolved!

bungeeii, you're right. when your attorney tells you that you're wrong then it's just time to get on with life. Our contractor, a friend of hers, is going over to talk with them. Hopefully they'll just fade into the background. But they still aren't being invited to the open house! Tom

actually, you SHOULD invite them. send them a note of apology for the screw up, and try to be friendly with them. after all, this whole thing WAS your fault, even though that was due to an error ont eh part of the survey.

As I mentioned before my son is a surveyor. We were actually discussing this very scenario a week ago. He just went through a situation where his company took the first company's calculations even though his measurements were more accurate.

It also reemphasizes the law of adverse possession. Ellied I'm 100% in agreement with bus_driver when he said...."If you are happy for her to have it, just deed it to her now. If you wish to retain ownership, write a simple lease and have her sign it. Charge $1.00 per year. Do one or the other now".
Honestly, that's a clean, kind, and protective way to AVOID boundary problems down the road.

skagit_goat_man
It never hurts to have a neighbor that even if not a friend is at least friendly.
Treat them like you would a bad set of In-Laws on your only child's wedding day. LOL

davidandkasie and kats- this is the fourth incident with them. They've been over screaming because we cleared our property and now they can see our house. They hung a 20' high and 50' long "tarp" in our trees to block their view of our house and lastly they walked on our taped off new garage apron pour and got dirt into the concrete which has to be buffed out. At least it was cured enough to not get feet imprints. I won't have any problem not being unfriendly to them but that's about it. The problem as I'm told is that they are OK people but when they drink have done some stupid things in the neighborhood. Unfortunately that seems to be their condition much of the time. Kats, I like your bad in-law analogy.

As far as the boundary, we accept (no choice per our attorney) the original survey which everyone has been using since '64. Our fence will go up, the shrubs planted and we'll all have our privacy.
Tom

My goodness your new neighbors sound even worse than ours. They tried everything in their power to undermine our build and finally gave up and mind their own business. I'm so sorry you'll have to live next door to people like that. That's never fun. Keep to yourself and document everything they do should you need it one day in a court of law.

sierra east: "Our neighbors keep creeping "stuff" on our property, mostly hay and horse crap, but neither one of us really has any use of the immediate property line area."

You need to NOT let your neighbor do this. Get a fence put up to prevent them from doing this. Our neighbor did this to us. Even after we repeatedly asked him to move it. Eventually he was into our lot line about 12'. Then he started getting weird and getting an attitude and thinking it WAS his.

OP: Glad it worked out for you. A recent survey is always the best way. Your neighbor handled it very badly I must say though.

skagit: WARNING: these people sound like potential problem neighbors.

"They hung a 20' high and 50' long "tarp" in our trees to block their view of our house"
IN YOUR trees??? What is up with that? You should not tolerate it.

You need to post no trespassing signs. They cannot enforce no trespassing unless you post signs. So what if you look like a grouch. It is your property and you can chop down ALL the trees if you want. Some people just are NOT their business.

I know of what I speak. I am into a 12 year battle with a neighbor and wish someone would have told me ALL this stuff in the beginning.

klimkm, thanks for the advise. We aren't in yet and wont be for some time, but your point being "give them an inch and they'll want a mile" seems like that could happen.My wife has started a dry stack wall, but we haven't been up much over the summer and close the house up for the winter.
Basically i just need to rap with our neighbor as they are approachable and seemingly decent and friendly folks, just kind of incringing types i guess.Thanks again!

I hope your neighbors are approachable. Ours never was, he took even the slightest suggestion and copped an attitude about it. Or totally ignored any request. And voila - here we are 15 years later - calling in law enforcement and possibly involving legal counsel... I am so stressed out about it.

Enforce your property rights, right away and put up a fence around your entire property before you even move in. Don't worry about hurting feelings. It is your property and you are paying for it.

Hope your neighbors are nice! Most of ours are actually. Just one is the big problem, unfortunately he is next door!

I've had a similar issue with my neighbor.

Neighbor has a 2.5 acre property that adjoins our 3.5 acres along a 600 foot common boundary line. Both properties were fairly heavily-wooded albeit mostly with smaller trees (trunk diameters under 6 inches) and brush but with an occasional larger tree (trunk diameters up to as much as 20 inches).

Before we bought our property four years ago, we had a complete survey done and paid about $200 extra to have a couple of in-line markers placed along the boundary because, due to the rise and fall of the land and the trees and brush, it was impossible to see from one corner stake to the next. The extra markers allowed us to know exactly where our property line was because we could sight a straight line from one to the next.

We have not yet built on our property (hope to break ground next month in fact) but, over the last four years, have gone out to it at least a couple of times a month to pic-nic, spend time getting to know the lay of the land, and do a little judicious tree and shrub trimming (all by hand!) so as to determine exactly where we wanted to situate our new home when we did build.

One thing we did on every single visit was walk the boundary lines so, over the course of four years, we had worn a clear foot-path (albeit a rather meanandering one) along the boundaries.

A little over a year ago, a builder built a spec home on the neighboring lot and four months ago it sold to new Neighbor. New Neighbor wanted to keep a couple of horses so he decided to clear the trees and brush off the back of his property to create a pasture and build a horse barn. (Neighborhood association rules allow one horse per acre and I don't have any problem whatsoever. I actually think horses in a pasture are beautiful but I have no desire to ride them or deal with mucking out their stables. Besides, there are enough trees on our property to shield them from view if we don't want to see them and our house will be far enough away that, unless Neighbor NEVER cleans the barn, there should be no smell issues.)

Anyway, Neighbor hired a bull-dozer to strip out every bit of vegetation except about three or four of the very largest trees on his property. The first time I saw it - the weekend after he bulldozed - the ground had been stripped down to raw earth which, due to all the rain we had here in central Texas last spring, looked exactly like scorched tomato soup! Nevertheless, so long as he only bulldozed his property, I would never have said a word about it.

Problem is, Neighbor didn't bother to have a survey done before proceeding and he told the bull-dozer driver that the foot-path marked the property boundary. WRONG!

In walking the boundary line, whenver we had to divert from a straight line path (due to trees, brush or cacti - this is central Texas) we ALWAYS deliberately veered off towards our own property so as to avoid trespassing on the neighboring lot. [In Texas you don't have to post "No Trespassing" signs in order to have the sheriff enforce trespassing laws and besides, I'm a strong believer in private property rights so wouldn't have wanted to trespass even if we were living in another state with somewhat more lax enforcement rules.] Thus, our path meandered anywhere from a foot or so to as much as 15 to 20 feet on OUR side of the actual boundary line.

The weekend after Neighbor did the bulldozing, I went out and could see right away that he had encroached on our property but, what with the in-line markers gone (bull-dozed out), I really could not be certain by how much.

So, I knocked on Neighbor's door, introduced myself, and explained that in the process of clearing his land, I believed he might have removed the two in-line markers because I could no longer locate the pins and the stakes that had been tied to them were now missing.

I also indicated that I was a bit concerned that he might have gone over onto my property but that I could not be certain without the in-line markers and asked him to have a surveyor come out and either re-locate or replace the missing pins.

I also suggested that, what with all the rain we had been getting - you've probably heard about the central Texas flooding last spring and we were forecast for more - Neighbor might want to consider putting in an erosion control fence until he could get some grass growing on his property. There was one point where water (a stream of red mud actually) was flowing pretty heavily from his property onto mine.

Neighbor went absolutely ballistic!

First he told me that he had not seen any in-line marker pins (duh, you have to know to look for them to find them!) and said that since I could not prove that he had removed them he was not about to pay to have them replaced.

He also insisted the flowing mud was natural drainage and therefore he didn't have to do anything about it! Two weeks earlier I had walked the boundary line and that particular spot had been somewhat soft due to all the rain, but no water (or mud) was actually flowing because it was well covered with vegetation. Since the mud was flowing toward a low spot on my property that we had decided we would want to fill in anyway, I figured if Neighbor wanted to let his topsoil wind up on my property, that was his loss.

More importantly, Neighbor absolutely insisted that he was certain he had done no harm to my property because he had "told the bull dozer operator not to take out any trees beyond the path." Besides he said, even if a few small trees had been removed, there was no way I could ever prove it. WRONG again!

Although I didn't think of it until a week or so after my conversation with Neighbor, last fall my husband and I decided to make a home movie of our property to give his Mother for her birthday. She kept saying she wished she could see it but she lives too far away and is too frail to travel. So I just happen to have a 12 minute digital movie, taken about 5 months, that very clearly shows the foot path, the trees on both sides of it AND Neighbor's house. With a bit of analysis and comparison to the trees that are still there, I can not only prove just how many trees were removed but how large they were and what kinds they were! LOL

At one point that day, Neighbor even had the unmitigated gall to tell me I was "unneighborly" to have even raised such issues on our first meeting! Needless to say, by that point, I was well pretty teed off. But then, Neighbor put the icing on the cake by informing me, quite self-righteously, that he was an attorney!!! Maybe he thought that would scare me off.

Well, guess what? I'm also an attorney although my practice is totally unrelated to property law! As an attorney, Neighbor should have KNOWN he had a positive duty to ascertain the property boundary lines before bulldozing. That is straight out of first-year Property Law class!

Needless to say, I am not nearly as inclined to forgive the harm lawyer Neighbor did as I would have been if he had been a lay person... or even if he had simply been just a tad less belligerant!

Upshot it that I paid for surveyors to come out and re-mark the boundary line. So, there are 4 foot tall wooden stakes, painted a bright flourescent pink, every fifty feet along the entire boundary. And with those markers in place it is unquestionable that Neighbor has encroached on my property by an average of at least 10 feet... which, over the 600+ foot length of the boundary, works out to over 6000 square feet. Hardly an insignificant amount of encroachment.

I have not yet sent Neighbor a demand letter for damages because, despite being a lawyer, I really don't have a litigeous nature and have been hoping that, once he saw clearly that he WAS in the wrong, he would apologize and ask how what he needed to do to repair the damage.

If he had, I intended to have him to pay for the survey ($350); purchase and put in a dozen or so small native trees (maybe $600) and scatter some native grass and wildflower seeds ($50) so once those grow up the cleared strip would no longer looks like it is part of his property and, with that, would have called it even.

As it is, if I have to take him to court, I intend to do my dead level best to make him pay through the nose. After all, my time is valuable too and, with all possibility of establishing a neighborly relationship gone anyway, I might as well go after every dollar I can.

And, needless to say if I have to sue for damages, we definitely WON'T be inviting Neighbor to our housewarming party when we do get our new home built either!

Anyway, if you've come to the conclusion that you are "at fault" regarding the boundary issue, I think you would be very wise to appologize for your mistake and make nice. It'll go far toward soothing ruffled feelings and make your neighborhood a more pleasant place to live!

Anyway, just thought I would share.

Quote from skagit_goat_man_
Like I said earlier I am not there. As things calmed down I got a clearer story and our attorney's advice. First, the corner pin from the original development of 1964 is a couple of feet inside our parcel from what our surveyor's pin is. They are using this original pin for the starting point of their fence posts. The other end of their fence posts is in the right spot if you use the pin from where they started. Our attorney says that the original 1964 pin, the one there when we purchased the property, is the legal corner and not the one our surveyor put in. According to him there was a property line established by this pin in our NW corner and another in the SE. He said that our surveyor's corners are probably physically more correct than the old pins' locations but regardless the old ones set the line. If there was an encroachment issue or an adverse possession issue they were being caused by us and we do not have the right to establish new corners that are different from the original. And then he pointed out that there are two additional properties using that pin for their corner marker. So basically he said that as far as the line location goes our neighbor is right and we're wrong. Tom>>>>>>>>

Tom,
I may be reading this wrong, BUT... the Laywer was saying the newer survey marks are not correct?? I would seriously question that. Just becaused he is a lawyer does not make him right.

A couple quick questions.
How is the land described on your Deed? Does is use Metes and Bounds, Northings, and Eastings, or something? Either way it describe Shape, size and location of your land.

And What is the lawyers rational for saying the new survey marks were incorrect? .If they are incorect, have them redone. They marks should not move. The size, shape, and location of your land does not change. When, if you sell, the new owners will pitch a fit if there is issues with the property, I would. it will save many headaches later.

Rusty

Rusty, it isn't that the new ones are wrong. His point was that if we sued, the court would look at the markers from the original plat in '64 that everyone has been using and that was there when we purchased and they'd also look at the markers we had done. He's sure the court would rule that the original as the legal one. It's not a matter of one being correct or incorrect, it's that over 44 years four properties have built using the original marker. Ours could even be more accurately placed than the origianl but that won't be the point for the decision. Tom

If that is the case then, I would think several deeds would need to be changed to reflect what is understood as the "correct" lines. Somehow some poeple got more land, and some were short changed. If that is fine with all parties, then ok, just fix the deeds. You may be understanding, and your neighbor may be understanding, but the next owners might not be. While I still don't think it is right, it might not be worth fighting for a few sq. ft. Either way some legal work should be done. Either changing the deeds, or fighting for the few ft.

Rusty

we recently purchased a lot and had survey problems too. our survey was wrong and when the issue came up early we called the surveyor and he checked his work and found his error!! not a big deal but a few feet and neighbors were ok just wanted it righ and just so happened one was buildin a fence the fence guy was a real pro the lots are big 1 to 2 acres and the fence is 12 inces off the line to the neighbors side so all is well but he told is the coundation for the posts below the ground is just a few inches in places from the line and that too needs to be on the fence owners property.

so far everyone is just happy we are buildin a home that fits the neighbor hood

bevangel: what a story! Hope it works out for you. Let us know what happens, as what happens to the one of us forum people - could happen to all of us. And information is power.

My story is off topic but may have some entertainment value. Acreage we own remote from our house, in my wife's family since as least 1858. Found an elaborate deer stand in one of our big trees, roof, windows, the works. Nails galore in the tree. Path chopped out with flagging tied along it for easy driving of 4-wheeler at night. Hunting without written permission from the property owner in the possession of the hunter while hunting is at least automatic $200 fine, plus other possible penalties. Called the wildlife officer (game warden). He and the officer from the next area staked out the stand and caught the guy. They all knew each other. The guy was a police officer in another jurisdiction. So the wildlife guys asked me if I would talk with the perpetrator and perhaps just not press charges as a conviction might mean he would lose his job. So I agreed. Talked privately. The guy got mouthy about his authority as an officer. I told him that in this jurisdiction, his badge plus a dollar would get a soda from most any supplier of sodas. He really got humble and apologized. I dropped the matter and he has stayed off my property and also stopped the same activity on the property of others. Some of the "others" have expressed appreciaton.

He wasn't Walker, Texas Ranger, I take it.

Living in a seedier part of town, the light-sleeping mrs. worthy would awake at night, peer out our 2nd floor bedroom window and see a guy leaning against the fence smoking a cigarette in our backyard. No one we knew. But he never left his butts there and didn't mess with anything so we didn't bother with him. We've moved since.

Hey bus driver, i would make that guy tear the deer stand down and pull all the nails as a way to knock his ego down a bit.A friend of ours is a cop and definetely has that"do as i say,not as i do" attitude.The tear down might be a little bite of "humble pie"

Exactly. He did remove it properly. Those were some of my conditions.

We had our survey done on a 5.5a lot in an upscale community and the neighbors to the south have been using about 50' of our land, and the neighbors to the north just brought in about 20 18' full pine trees and planted them on our land after we bought it. How generous of them. The neighbors to the south have not responded to attempts to resolve the property line dispute and continue to mow our property. Really annoying. Might be time for some passive aggressive work of my own.

If you are confident of the Southern boundary, dig a substantial ditch along the line with a backhoe. I solved a similar problem in similar fashion.

Legally you can do what you want with your property. But I hate it when people clear the trees. I also hate it when i can see the neighbors. I'd be plenty upset too. No legal recourse but that doesn't change how they, and I would, feel.
One thing I really don't understand is - why do you want to see the neighbors?

I though this one was long dead. The question I have is why did my neighbors clear all their trees to the property line if they wanted their privacy ensured? I don't care about seeing my neighbors but I want a livestock pasture not woods. Tom

Re:"Legally you can do what you want with your property. ".

Not necessarily true. Many municipalities have ordinances against cutting trees, even if they are on your property.

Mike, you're right. We had to get a county clearing permit to cut trees. Our permit allowed us to cut up to one acre. The application for the permit was posted on the road asking for public comment. No one submitted any. Tom

If it's possible to talk to the neighbor at all, I would propose to have another surveyor come out, chosen by them (or have them give you two, you choose one), and paid for by your or them, to determine the line. And then use that line.