Fence/legal question

[Green Tea]

Why did your DH said you'd pay to have have it moved??

 

[KAMLEM]

Why did your DH said you'd pay to have have it moved??

That's my question. Why in the world would your DH offer to pay for their error? That sounds like a mistake.

I don't agree that the fence company had a right to be rude at all, but maybe he was just frustrated that you called him. After all, you are not the person that hired him. I think you should have gone to the homeowner first. If I was doing construction, I wouldn't want my neighbors going to the contractors and bypassing me if they had an issue.

 

[Camicar]

This could cause problems when time to sell. It happened to my in-laws when they bought a home. The neighbor had encroached the property and all sorts of paperwork had to be done before the seller could offer clear title. It wasn't by much. I think the seller had to lower the price. My in-laws had the right to walk away from the purchase without penalty if they wanted to according to their attorney.

This happened to my friend. She did not want to make waves either and then deeply regretted it when it came time to sell. Her neighbors actually made the argument that since she had not protested it vociferously that she had actually ceded the property to them! She ended up having to pay legal bills and lost the intial buyer of her property.

There are times when conflict is necessary.

 

[agnes!]

Why did your DH said you'd pay to have have it moved??

He offered to pay a token amount towards any costs incurred because the fence-post was moved, mostly as a good-faith gesture. I don't think New Neighbor will take him up on it.

That's my question. Why in the world would your DH offer to pay for their error? That sounds like a mistake.

I don't agree that the fence company had a right to be rude at all, but maybe he was just frustrated that you called him. After all, you are not the person that hired him. I think you should have gone to the homeowner first. If I was doing construction, I wouldn't want my neighbors going to the contractors and bypassing me if they had an issue.

Yeah, I can see your point. I was thinking that the business-owner would want to be told and wasn't aware of the error. I would have called New Neighbor himself but I didn't know who else to call since I didn't have any of NN's phone numbers. I just wanted to get it fixed ASAP and not let it go, wasn't sure when I would see New Neighbor.
Taught me a lesson....if I have any work done on my house that is outside, I'll make sure neighbors have my phone number if I'm not here to supervise.

agnes!

 

[mookie]

I don't have any answers but just want to add my fence/neighbor story. We have owned this house since 1994 and at that time we put up a fence approx. 6 inches inside the property line. Fast forward to 2004 and 2005 and 3 hurricanes took a toll on that 10 year old fence. The fence was history but the posts were still standing (well most of them) Next thing we know the neighbor who rents out both units on the property is putting up a fence - with OUR fence posts - on OUR property. The best part is his wife put a "note" in our mailbox that asked for $200 for putting up the fence - needless to say I never responded to her. I am not going to pay someone to put up their fence on my property with my posts - but I didn't tell them to take it down either because there needs to be a fence there and that fence is better then no fence (oh and I don't plan on selling any time soon so that isn't a big concern of mine - the fence will probably be blown away again by time I even think of selling!!)

OP - good luck with your fence problems

You know, this is funny....I know so many people that have fence issues with their neighbors...including us.

When we first moved into our home, we were all new construction. We all (basically) moved in at the same time. Our neighbors next to us asked us if we wanted to go in on a fence, since we'd be sharing one side. We then decided to ask our neighbor behind us, who had a really large yard that spread across both ours and our next door neigbors yard in the back. The neighbor behind us said "no, I don't think we are going to fence in, but we don't mind if you do."

So we did.

Fast forward 6 MEASLY MONTHS LATER...guess what? I came home from work to find my neighbors behind us FENCED IN THEIR YARD!!! On top of that....THEY USED OUR FENCE AND ATTACHED IT TO THEIRS!!!!

The thing is, we never really had a relationship with the neigbors behind us anyway, so it was easy to be fumed at them. Our neighbor next to us was even more furious....basically the guy behind us got his whole backside of his fence FOR FREE because ours and our neighbors was already up.

We did the math on it, and technically he probably owed about 1,000 to us for his share of the fence...split between us and our other neighbor.

Of course, 2 years later, they moved. Not a word ever about using our fence for theirs. Good thing we like the new people who moved into their house...we told them the story over some tasty beverages, and had a good (although slightly bitter) laugh.