Get Off My Land
Approximately four years ago, I finally convinced my husband to make the move to Florida. The kids are grown and on their own so we made the leap and bought a wonderful (little) house close to the beach. All is well and good. We meet the neighbors and get along with all of them. I’m very happy at this point.
My backyard fence is vinyl on three sides and wooden between me and my neighbor on the left, Andrew. We had planned on changing it to vinyl but hurricane Irma beat us to it. Knocked it down pretty as you please. It took me about three months to save up for the materials and labor costs of my new fence.
I like to pay cash if I can. Anyway, Andrew and my husband are unloading my new fence and out of nowhere Andrew says, “I don’t know why you spent all this money on the fence, you can’t put it up”.
Wait, what? What do you mean I can’t put it up? He then proceeded to tell me that the property line between us ran right through the middle of my shed—which the fence had been attached to and where I planned on putting the new fence.
He also said that the neighbor on the other side of him put up a new fence while he was away and when he got home, he made her take it down! You have got to be kidding me. Insert eye roll. I, however, am not so easily intimidated. I was actually quite mad.
Having so recently purchased the home, I called the surveyor and explained what was up. We set up an appointment for the following week. Immediately when they pulled up and got out of their vehicle, Andrew runs over talking about “Y’all can’t be on my land. This is private property”!
The boss man of the crew was very polite as he explained that they could and would be on his property to settle the dispute over property lines. If he didn’t agree with their findings then he was more than welcome to hire his own surveyor and proceed to take it to court.
Boy howdy, he was angry. I found out that my property line was 22 inches past the shed, where the original fence had stood.