Thursday, July 14, 2011

Encroached Upon: How to Handle Overhanging Property

By Adam Ciboch


You might find it difficult to believe that boundary mistakes can be make when it comes to your property. The tiniest of differences can accurately be distinguished with property assessment tools and computer technology. Despite all this technology, your neighbor's newest building project might still be built over property lines. That's where encroachment laws come in.

When a neighboring piece of property overhands into property you yourself own, this is the American property law concept called encroachment. It can be pretty much anything that's actually doing the encroaching. Culprits include trees, building portions, wooden or wire fencing and other types of fixtures. Whatever it actually happens to be, the object is spread out over two property boundaries without the permission of one landowner.

Sometimes encroachments happen purposefully. If you and your neighbor don't get along, you can probably easily see how this might be the case. In other instances, it's a governmental encroachment, given legal authority by a zoning law or permit.

There are several actions you can take once your property has been encroached upon. Try being polite first. Options include requesting that the encroachment be removed or that the adjoining It isn't uncommon for an encroaching landowner not to realize they've encroached in the first place, and then they'll be happy to agree to your terms. Another option is to permanently sell the land to your neighbor, if you're willing. If you're unsuccessful in that regard, you could also request that a court have the neighbor remove the object by means of a court order.

You should also note that many countries choose to use adverse possession laws to deal with encroachments. The encroachment being open and notorious is just one of the criteria that needs to be met and can be if the lawful owner of the land does not do anything within a certain period of time. You also need to keep these laws in mind if you haven't done anything to remove the unacceptable encroachment. The best way to deal with an encroachment, by and far, is to speak with the landowner who is encroaching to come to a successful resolution, though.




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