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I am a new home owner. The house I bought was a flip with lovely landscaping done. My house is next to a vacant lot, which according to the neighbours has been neglected for over 10 years. The vacant lot owner has recently got in touch with me to notify me that my property is encroaching based on the survey he had done. He plans to build a two story house later this year. He showed me a topographic map of the encroachments. My back yard and a foot of my driveway are encroaching. He says my garage is right on the property line and my driveway/fence flares out onto "his" but if I build a fence right there then it will be hard for me to get out of my car, it's already a bit of a squeeze at times. My agent, lender and title company were not aware of the encroachments. I filled a claim with the title company, which will take 10 days for correspondence. I got a few survey quotes and the cost is $1,750. I cannot afford to pay that just to find out that the vacant lot owner was right.
I did speak to a few real estate attorney's and they advised me to get in touch with the title company first. They mentioned there are laws that say if the encroachment has been over a certain amount of time you can claim it as yours.
I wanted to post in this forum to hear what you all think of this situation? Please keep in mind that I have limited funds :/.
It may be different in your state but here we need to have a survey before the new title insurance policy is issued. I can't imagine how a title insurer would issue a policy without this being done. Hopefully, the insurer will dig back into the records and find a recorded permanent easement if the other owner is right.
Please post back here once you've heard back from your title insurer.
The title company should know what it was that they were insuring -- as SmartMoney said, I hope you did purchase the owner's title insurance, and didn't just buy the title insurance required by a lender.
Have you seen evidence that a surveyor has been out there? Little flags in the ground, etc.? Has your neighbor shared a copy of the survey? Or is he just going by a Google satellite photo and approximate property lines? Topographic maps are interesting, but hardly a survey.
Meanwhile, if you don't have a survey, get in touch with the people who flipped your house -- I'm betting they have a copy of a survey, especially if they were doing landscaping, new driveway, etc.
The title company should know what it was that they were insuring -- as SmartMoney said, I hope you did purchase the owner's title insurance, and didn't just buy the title insurance required by a lender.
Have you seen evidence that a surveyor has been out there? Little flags in the ground, etc.? Has your neighbor shared a copy of the survey? Or is he just going by a Google satellite photo and approximate property lines? Topographic maps are interesting, but hardly a survey.
Meanwhile, if you don't have a survey, get in touch with the people who flipped your house -- I'm betting they have a copy of a survey, especially if they were doing landscaping, new driveway, etc.
Yes I have insurance, I did mention I filed a claim with the title company.
I have been in touch with the flippers and they don't have any surveys.
There's no evidence and I've asked to see the survey (via email) and he hasn't gotten back to me yet. When we met, he simply got out a measuring tape and measured my property to show me how it crosses the line.
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