Am I a bad neighbor?

[Anonymous Poster]

Motelman, you are correct, Sir! The only way one can be certain of a situation working out like you want it is to try to control as much of the situation as you can. I encountered the same situation in a vacation home that I owned a few years ago. The individual lots were quite small and the numbers of families out there were few and far between. Unfortunately over the next 5 years the place got very popular and built up rapidly. The good news was I had bought 5 lots around my home. When the density got to be too much, I sold out at a premium because, you guessed it, the extra lots that came with the cabin.

 

[Spencer]

Well I have read these posts over and over and I think photo I attached that I did stack the posts right on the edge of my property line. I had to sort and stack all of the lumber that was delivered and that seemed to be the best place for me to place them. I would have had to stack the posts there or some of the two-by material there. I stacked the posts there because I would be using them first. If I stacked some of the two-by material there, it would be sitting there for a longer period of time.

My neighbors acted real surprised last year when the property was surveyed and that survey stake showed up where the yellow t-post is now. The husband acted as if he didn’t know that they were using someone else’s property to access their pole barn and that part of their lawn was not really theirs. His wife told me shortly after that stake went up that the husband did know where the property lines were and he decided to build there anyway (one of those “I told him not to” situations).

I would rather they didn’t use my property at all because it can always lead to something bad down road. That being said I have talked to my attorney about the situation and I am in no immediate danger of adverse possession or of a prescriptive easement. So I don’t have a big problem with them using my property to access their pole barn. We are the only two families out here and I didn’t want to start out by making a big deal about it and making them stop using it. I really want to be on good terms with them and I am willing to make reasonable sacrifices in order to do so.

So anyway, even though that section of lawn is our property, me using that property is probably what ticked them off. It was the day after I moved the posts there that they started acting differently. I guess I should have put two and two together but it’s the same time that I started construction so I wasn’t sure what set them off. I have spent a great amount of time down there preparing the area for the pole barn. Many of those hours were on the tractor and I am sure that they were getting very sick of me running it all of the time. I was out there until 10 pm a handful of times and I’m sure they weren’t thrilled with that either. During the whole time that I was preparing the site they acted very friendly and always waived. So I was quite surprised when I finally started construction (and wasn’t using the tractor nearly as much) that they started acting differently.

So if this small section of grass is such a big deal then I guess "the feces would hit the fan" if I ever wanted to try and prevent them from using my land to access their pole barn.