Established Property Lines (Encino: sale, real estate, HOA)

[Hardworkingdaddy]

We purchased a home in Encino Park. We have lived there for about four years and the home was built about 24 years ago.

We recently discoverd that the fence between our house and the neighbor's may be encroaching on the property line. The fence is built too far over onto my neighbors side. This was noted on a survey that was done as we prepare to sell our home.

My neighbor does not have a problem with it, as it has been this way since his home was built (he is the original owner of his home and has always lived there since it was built). I think the fence was built this way to save a huge oak tree that sits right on the property line.

My question: Is there something like a statute of limitations on property lines? After a certain amount of time, can something like a fence line, that has been in place for say...24Years.. be considered the new property line? I am trying to avoid the expense of moving a fence and relocating a storage shed.

That's called Adverse Possession. You'd need to speak to a real estate attorney to see if you can claim the difference between the fence line and the property line under the rule of adverse possession. Your agent or title company can generally refer you to a good RE attorney.

[Hardworkingdaddy]

Thanks Rockin!

I did a search and found that you are correct. I'll post a link just incase someone else has the same question in the future.
http://recenter.tamu.edu/pdf/1152.pdf

Best news is that, after explaining things to him, our neighbour is going to sign whatever it takes to insure the property lines are corrected and that we are awarded the land we thought we owned. Woohoo! BTW its only about seventy square feet, not anything huge.

I'm glad your neighbour is so amenable! I work for a title company, and nothing strikes fear in an escrow officer's heart more than, "I have to see if my neighbour will sign an easement/adverse possesion doc/bindin agreement".

Hope the sale of your home goes well!

[Hardworkingdaddy]

Well a survey guy looked at our property and we received some pretty bad news.

Our house was built...over 20 years ago....too close to the utility easement. We are actually encroaching on the city's land!

The process for correcting this is time consuming and costly. We have to hire a survey crew to survey our property and the neighbors and then draw up a "plat". Then we have to take the information through a series of city departments with a request that they just "give" us the land that they set aside for utility easement. We are looking at $2500 or more plus 30 days at the minimum to get it processed without a guarantee that the city will ok anything. The only good thing is that there are no utilites running between our houses and that our neighbor is co-operative.

It is too late to contact the builder..he is dead now. Not sure why our lender did not catch it or why the sellers did not mention it when we closed on the home about 4 years ago. Not sure why the HOA in our area approved the site plans when they were in violation of the easement. Guess it is our problem now.

Is this the sort of thing that title insurance covers?

Oh boy. I'm so sorry!

It depends. You really need to talk to either a real estate attorney or the title company that issued your owner's title policy. It's very possible that the title company caught that your house encroaches over the easement and took an exception to it in their policy. If that's the case, then no, it would not be covered as it was specifically excluded, plus they would have explained it to you at closing. Did you get a new survey when you closed, or did the seller provide their existing survey?

Without knowing the specifics of your title policy, I can't tell you whether or not you are covered. I highly, HIGHLY reccomend you talk to the escrow officer you closed with. Explain your situation - they can pull your file and see what your particulars are. I'm not a lawyer, and since I'm not familiar with your particular closing, my advice is limited to just saying to call the escrow officer and ask them to look into it.

Good luck!

[Hardworkingdaddy]

We used the original survey, supplied by the seller. It shows the problem clearly. While no mention of our home encroaching a utility easement was made. It was mentioned at closing as a problem with the placement of the fence. The agent explained that it really was not a problem since the neighbor built the fence too far over on his own property. There is nothing we could do about a neighbor who built his fence "inside" his property line.

You are correct,the title insurance listed property lines and easements in the "Exclusions" section. Well, live and learn I guess.

The people who have made the offer on our home caught the problem and let us know about it. They want to close quickly, because they are in a time crunch, and may be ok with purchasing the home and getting this taken care of later. I am not sure if their lender would approve it, who knows.

Thank you for your advice.

[diboron]

I have a fence between the neughbor and I. The neighbor says he owns approximately 3 feet on my side about half way up and my gate and fence runs over to meet his fence and continues up to the front gate. he told me I cannot paint my side of the fence. Can i paint all my side of the fence and does he have the right to enter my property to paint my side his color.