"Likewise on the other side of my lot--turns out their fence crosses onto my property, but I don't care! It would look weird if it followed the property line & it is only a small bit of frontage, one or two feet. I just don't quite know how to address this. I suppose that legally he is in the right, but if the exact boundary is so important to him, why does he distribute all his trash cans etc over the line in front of my house? "

Have a survey done, permanently mark the boundaries, and deal with it. The lines are where the lines are and he is 100% within his rights to lay "claim" to what is indeed his.
I would move the fencing (and did indeed do the same thing when I moved into this home- had over 200 ft of 6 ft chain link rerouted) to more accurately reflect the lot lines- it would save a lot of grief in the future.

As to his motivation in placing his trash, it sounds like a simple dominance struggle to me- he's making a point. Maybe perhaps you were a bit dismissive of his boundary concerns and he thought this would get your complete attention?
Your neighborhood has run smoothly for many years and perhaps you are a tad upset with these new folks for upsetting the applecart?

Have another talk with a verified survey in hand and come to an agreement. Neighbor/fence issues can escalate quickly and get nasty real fast. You need to document the facts with a survey, accept the results, and get on with being a neighbor.

Oh man, we experienced this same type of thing when living in NH. Our home was in an older neighborhood with homes ranging from c. 1848 to the 1920s. Over the decades, fences went up, garages were built, patios poured, hedges were planted, etc. All was well in the world.

Then, a new neighbor moved in. A younger couple buying their first home. He came over to our place insisting that our raised planter was 4' into his backyard. Well, first of all...we knew it wasn't. My DH is an attorney & careful about such stuff. We'd had a friend who's a surveyor come out & for free spot the corners. Anyway, he got very ugly at me during the day when DH wasn't home...shouting obscenities & making threats. Eventually, he became aggressive physically towards me & my other neighbor phoned the police.

Anyway, we told him to get a survey & if he was correct we'd not only move the planter (huge job) but we'd pay for the survey. Turned out the planter was fine but his garage was almost entirely on OUR PROPERTY! It was soooo funny, to us. We didn't care. His garage had been there for over 60 years. He, however, was furious about the survey he'd gotten because we didn't have to move the planter so he could put a patio there...he just didn't have it in him to apologize so he moved instead. Good ridance. We were all better off without him around!

In your case though...if he insists there's not much you can do. It is his property & cearbhaill has called it right on.

I'm sorry you've got a neighbor like this but there's no telling what will set some people off.

Good luck...

/tricia

Been thru the same situation, about us installing a boulder wall along the property line..It was a 1 course wall, just to level off the area..My neighbor, who we liked, and still did after this incident came running out..."How do you know that the rocks aren't on MY property?" she asked,kinda of with a snippy .. I said, because i am a Land Surveyor!!!! AND i'm using YOUR property markers you had installed... LOL... I later found out(1 hour later) her markers were 10 inches wrong, in her favor!!! So the wall actually was well clear of property line..My opinion is to get the property surveyed,so this doesn't fester and cause ireversible neighborly damage :)

The bottom line is that property lines mean A LOT to some people and not so much to others.

My husband and I fall on different sides of this issue. It is beyond me why people care about these things, and it is beyond his understanding why I don't find it important.

The only other thing than changing fence lines, which it sounds like may look strange because of the curve of the street and house positioning(? not sure I followed all that correctly) is to actually have everyone agree on legally changing their property lines to follow the fence lines. I have no idea whether that would be fair and equitable to everyone involved or could even be agreed upon but it would also solve the problem. If "everyone" did it it sounds like the loss on one side would equal the gain on the other side?

"The bottom line is that property lines mean A LOT to some people and not so much to others.
My husband and I fall on different sides of this issue. It is beyond me why people care about these things, and it is beyond his understanding why I don't find it important."

People care about these things because ones home and property represent the largest investment they will ever make, and they do not wish to give any of it away. Sooner or later you will need to know where your property begins and ends.

I'm the one who incurred considerable expense to have a fence moved to the correct property line. It was a relatively small amount of footage along one side of our lot varying from twelve to twenty feet. Although we paid cash for the house I was trying to save a dime so skipped the survey figuring what difference did it make? We were buying the house regardless- the actual boundary would not change my opinion of the property.

Even though my neighbor on that side is extremely easy going (and is in fact the one that told us about our fence being way inside our boundary to begin with) he could sell his property at any moment and we would have new owners to deal with. They might not be so easy to deal with and could in fact argue that the area had been used by my neighbor for 30 years already and was now his under adverse possession. Stranger things have happened.

Why would I spend thousands of dollars to landscape an area with fuzzy boundaries? My neighbor could elect to put up a fence along the proper line and I might wish to take down the old (incorrect fence). But then all of my landscaping would need to be moved 20 feet back in order to preserve the lot proportions. Not good.

What if someone were to be injured on the area of the property in question? Whose homeowners insurance wuld get tapped, or who would be sued? Would any boundary discrepancies tie up legal proceedings forever and complicate things terribly?

There are 100 other reasons to find out your exact boundaries. It only has to be done once. Then everything is clear and in writing and there is no possibility for anyone to mistake the markers or not know where the line is.

I see it as sort of "Homeownership 101" and just don't understand how you could not want to know exactly what you own. It's important.

Thanks for all your input. Interestingly enough, none of the fencing is "mine" exactly; both were put up as part of enclosing my neighbors' back yards & it looks like a previous owner of my house then completed it across the back & front. I long ago took out the little sections that completed the enclosure in front because they were in bad condition,but the posts ( not attached to his fence)are still there.

I think for everyone could get together & work out an agreement legally realigning lines to the common understanding of the past 20 years would be ideal. After all we are talking about a disputed sliver of about 12-18 " narrowing to only a few by the time it reaches the corner of his house. Not like you can do much with it--couldn't even widen the driveway at the street because of the drainage pipes. It's the way he is going about it (if that is his motivation) that has me flummoxed. We have been very friendly & chatted quite a bit, if he cared I would have thought he would bring it up before now instead of mentioning my bin.

The trash spreading started well before he ever made a comment about it being "his" corner--that was just 2 days ago.

Someone mentioned adverse possesion-- I would have a strong claim there, as I have maintained the area, as I mentioned, for 15 years & the previous neighbors also accepted what we all thought was the boundary. Who knows when the drains were originally put in? It might have been when the house was built in 1942.

Actually, now that I think about it, these fences may go back as early as 1957, which is when I think the city abandoned the alley that once was behind the houses & split the area between the properties. My back fence is sited along the former property line, but the property actually now extends a further 8 feet.

Raee...Your wish of....
"everyone could get together & work out an agreement legally realigning lines to the common understanding of the past 20 years would be ideal"

....probably won't be possible. This is because most municipalities have rules about lot width and depth as well as setbacks to the house, road, and even square footage of the lot, etc. If you alter the lot, this could cause a zoning problem for one or more of the properties.

"The bottom line is that property lines mean A LOT to some people and not so much to others."

Very astute. I agree with that 100%. We live in a nieghborhood of larger lots (all over 2 acres). You'd think there'd be no property line issues, since it is a new neighborhood. But we have the largest (by quite a bit) lot and some of our land might appear to belong to other houses because our lot is so much bigger (50-100% larger). One house has no water access, but we have over 500' and some of ours wraps in front of their house (I think the deeloper deliberately deined then water frontage because of what they were paying for the lot). They have cut down all the trees and growth to the water (highly illegal) on OUR land in front of their house. DH is beside himself. Practically foaming at the mouth. I want to be friends with these people and favor informing them we are giving them permission to use the land (avoiding adverse possession) and warning them they may be fined by the town (others have been) for the illegal cutting. A surveyor marked our corners with ribbon, and DH explained it to them. I don't care if they cut the darn trees. DH does. We had another issue with a neighbor throwing yard waste on our land. That I DO care about. Another neighbor cut our trees thinking he was on a public ROW.

DH is a civil engineer and has done quite a bit of survey work. Property lines are one of his "things". If anyone encroached with anything physical (fences, patios, etc.) he would make them take it down.

I have said this before and apparently need to say it again - get a survey BEFORE you buy!

The neighbor may be one (like myself) who is congenitally unable to confront people with uncomfortable topics. So the passive aggressive approach sort of breaks out like a hive when the frustration of his feelings over the 18" builds up:) and he does the trash thing. If you don't have that kind of problem you may help him out by just bringing the whole thing up. Of course he could turtle on you anyway.
In addition to the whole thing sort of being annoying and upsetting with the trash and attitude I can see where you have a real practical stake in this issue.
Should you back off and opt to never cross the line - what happens if he doesn't maintain the drainage that affects your property?
Perhaps you need to call the city about getting an easement or something - that makes that drainage sort of neutral territory - so he, or some other buyer down the line - can't arbitrarily block it up etc.

changing property lines to follow fence lines is not only impractical but would cost some good $$$..You would need to file all new deeds for properties involved, and then,as noted by others, be certain that setback,sideline offsets,property lot size are not adversely affected,and be in violation of current code...Defintely not worth the expense and ensuing headaches

you will never get everyone on the street to agree to changing the property lines. It's like trying to get everyone in a Home Owners Association to agree. It just doesn't happen.

Best thing to do is to get YOUR property professionally surveyed.. Let the stakes speak for you. It may not bother you where the lines are BUT should you go to sell or one of the neighbors on either side of you and it's going to make ALOT of difference.

in my case it was because my neighbor is nuts!! he created his own version of a survey,tried to get me and the very elderly and sick neighbors to sign quit claim deeds and was so threatening to them that the town clerk refused to let them sign the document when they came to her for notarization.
i ended up suing him for trespass,won in court and then when he appealed to the supreme court i won again.
now he's really mad.
but knows i'll slap a restraining order on him if he contacts me again.
this is his rental unit,,he lives in a nearby town.i've heard he's moved on to harrassing his new neighbors.

Thanks again everybody. I think that you are right, Marys1000, I should just go over there with the map and says, "look, you are right, this triangle of the yard does belong to you & how will we deal with the maintenance etc because in 15 years no one has realized this." I won't say "no one has cared"!

The irony of this is, it is a real problem for my neighbor on the other side. Our houses are closer together, and they are the ones with the picket fence in front--they built it to enclose a small vegetable garden & disguise that from the street, & the fence is of course parallel with the house walls (side & front). If I am correct, the property line actual bisects the garden & takes out all the side fence & about a quarter of the front length! in order to prevent any problem from a future owner of my house, I think I will need to quitclaim that area to them, won't I?

My MIL is like this, constantly battling with her neighbors about where the property line is.

She had a surveyor come out and he put the little flags on sticks where the property lines are. The neighbor came out that night and pulled them up and dropped them in her yard.

The next day the surveyor was back and my MIL had a construction company drive giant iron posts into concrete footings and then painted the posts bright orange. The neighbor came out screaming at her that the surveyor was wrong, etc.

So the neighbor plants a big bush right next to the post to try and disguise it.

MIL poisons bush.

And so on, and so on, and so on. I think it's just that we haven't completely evolved past cave man sometimes and this is how it exerts itself.

If you quiclaim that area to your neighbor, you might be making your home unsellable because you might cause it to not meet current zoning rules. Also, you just don't go an quitclaim a small portion of your land. You would have to get your current lot resurveyed and then split off that piece. It then must meet all zoning. Then get the municipality involved. They often have rules on how/if you split land. Then, I am pretty sure, the neighbors get their place resurveyed in order to add the new piece to their property.

Then redeed your home and the neighbors preroperty to note the new boundaries. Then you might need to get the lenders involved, if any, since a redeed is taking place. Also probably tax stamps or such for the redeed.

Guessing all the above would be at least $5000 in fees, maybe more...IF it even meets zoning. You might get partially done and have to stop because it isn't allowed.Also this might affect homestead laws, since the property is redeeded and modified(even slightly). This could possibly trigger a tax reassessment.

Instead, why don't you just give your neighbor permission to use your land?

It's more likely that you're legally in the right, not him.

From the facts you present, most likely you and all your neighbors have proscriptive easements to continue using the boundary areas in the same ways that have been going on over the decades. That means that you shouldn't have to move your fences, planters and whatever just because someone new to the neighborhood has decided to get tough about his property lines.

I would ignore him and continue doing what you've always done. If he still harasses you, go to a real estate attorney and get him/her to draft a letter laying out the facts and the legal basis of your right to continue your customary use of the boundary areas.

In other words, put him on the defensive if you need to.

And to other posters -- please note that proscriptive easements arise from continued use and are NOT recorded. So please don't come back with something like "there can't be easements unless because none appear on the deeds" because, at law, that simply isn't true.

"proscriptive easements"?

Here is a link that might be useful: Easements