A few years ago we found our dream property. It was all good until some pesky Melbourne people bought the place next door on the internet, sight unseen.

What I'm saying here, is that we just don't get on, never will. I wouldn't buy socks without feeling them. Who buys a house without seeing it?

Anyway, these people are dickheads, they want to fence everything have NFI and are just out of place. They they hate their house, hate their garden and stay busy spraynig roundup every bit of life on their land.

They did a land survey, cause they hate their house, and unfortunately - for both of us - found that part of our upstairs ramp and deck was encroaching on their land.

I really dislike these knobs, but am now forced to deal with them on this issue and try to stay calm and friendly. Can't even sell up without resolution.

We've engaged a lawyer to deal with the cutns on this encroachment issue, as I'm concerned about getting too emotional with the tards.

Has anyone got some good strategies on dealing and getting on with people you dislike on a daily basis?

Buy and use regularly at least one of the following:
- blower vac
-Harley
- barking dog
- basketball hoop/backboard
- angle grinder
-screaming wife
-drum kit/bagpipes/trumpet

Or get your kids to join the school band and take up playing the recorder....plenty of practice outside will make your neighbours hearts melt with happiness.

have mates friends rock up late evenings, bang on your front door then drive off 2 minutes later. Make it appear that your a dealer, then again you might be what's why your so up tight

Are you ****ing serious?!?!? Just cut and rebuild or move the entire house how do you have any ****n possible thought other then removeing your **** off theyre ****n land ya peanut

Move ya damn house

Im not the voice of reason around here but if you were to put ANYTHING ontop of someone elses damn body like if i walked over to you and placed a damn keyboard in your lap and just stood nearby to see if you would play it what the damn hell you think gonna happen?!? Dig a damn hole and put a post in it remount everything that was overhangijg to the new post and tear what ever was on theyre property away. And i mean

TO THE MILLIMETER and with that new post you plant several MORE ALL THE DAMN WHILE ALONG THAT BORDER LINE TO THE DAMN MILIMETER

YOU LEGALLY FORTNIGHT THST BASTARD IN THERE HIS PLANTS GET NO SUN YOUNTHE SUN GOD NOW

I know nothing about land and property law (or much of anything, to be honest).
Can you simply buy that sliver of property from them so that it falls into your property line?
your new favourite neighbours might up and sell, but the problem of your building falling on the other property remains without your either gaining that land or moving your structure?
but I do feel for you. We've had a few homes in our street change hands in the last 12 months, and it's changed the neighbourhood.... and not for the better.
ive been here for nearly 20 years, because of such great neighbours- but I'm considering moving now.

I dont remember typeijf any of that. Sounds insane reading it back the second time.... that you bitching on a forum whe you got some your damn house on my lroperty what the hell man!! I would LOOOOOOSEEE MYYY MIIIINNNNDDD if i bought a house and some mufafka had **** hanging over my damn yard what the hell man

Id light a fire

I live in my car and god damn do i get mad when people shine lights at me. I dont like anyone elses photons in my property i cant even imagine there i am hideing out from reality in my vt commodore and someones balcony just float on thru my rear passenger window and just hang out there inches from my face in the back seat as i throw thumbtips at some socisl media about how awesome hashtag vanlife ina carlife is

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damned67 said..
I know nothing about land and property law (or much of anything, to be honest).
Can you simply buy that sliver of property from them so that it falls into your property line?
your new favourite neighbours might up and sell, but the problem of your building falling on the other property remains without your either gaining that land or moving your structure?
but I do feel for you. We've had a few homes in our street change hands in the last 12 months, and it's changed the neighbourhood.... and not for the better.
ive been here for nearly 20 years, because of such great neighbours- but I'm considering moving now.

I think you can get the boundaries adjusted, i.e. the neighbours will sell you some of their land, but I expect it would be pretty difficult in most situations. Either the neighbour wanting a huge amount for it, or not wanting to sell at all.

I would just sell all some of my bitcoin and buy the neighbour's property.

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damned67 said..
I know nothing about land and property law (or much of anything, to be honest).
Can you simply buy that sliver of property from them so that it falls into your property line?
your new favourite neighbours might up and sell, but the problem of your building falling on the other property remains without your either gaining that land or moving your structure?
but I do feel for you. We've had a few homes in our street change hands in the last 12 months, and it's changed the neighbourhood.... and not for the better.
ive been here for nearly 20 years, because of such great neighbours- but I'm considering moving now.

You can either demolish the offending property or negotiate to purchase the sliver of land. But getting everyone to agree takes time. Our particular issue was caused by a surveying mistake made decades ago.

When buying property you can choose to buy something called title insurance for a one off price that would have helped.

How long has your deck been there...if its more than 15 years then you could make an adverse possession claim. you'd probably lose if you haven't physically built on the property but it would stuff them around for a good while.

courts don't like fencing and land disputes - it is a waste of their time. they will expect you to resolve in mediation. if you can appear to be the reasonable party then it is likely to go in your favour. offer to purchase at market rate, offer them an alternative equivalent amount of your land etc (through your lawyer). will stand you in good stead as the reasonable party when you get to court.

went through a similar debacle with a guy who just wanted to cause trouble, won the court case but you're still left with a neighbour who is a c---. I sold up.

or maybe send vodka around, i think they would move on pretty quickly

set their house on fire totally destroyed
You get charged with arson 2 years in prison
they had no insurance so are up the creek and move back to Victoria house sits empty and condemned for 5 years
while your doing time a mate shifts the boundary markers
You think you have won


then the natives decide Exmouth is too crazy and move south and find an empty shanty...next door to you

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CH3MTR4IL5 said..
How long has your deck been there...if its more than 15 years then you could make an adverse possession claim. you'd probably lose if you haven't physically built on the property but it would stuff them around for a good while.

I think the adverse possession thing is a bit more difficult/involved than you would assume. I think you need to be able to demonstrate that you had exclusive use of the property and paid the costs, including rates, for the land involved.

Even if you fenced off a neighbours sliver of land and used it as your own it would fail under these conditions.

There was a case in Sydney where some guy got a house like this and it sounded fishy. From memory, he figured out it was empty for a long time and that the owner was in care or something like that. He then cleaned it up, got tenants in, and paid rates on it for quite a while, then made his claim. I think he was a realestate agent or something which is how he knew it was empty, and what to do about it.
To my mind, not an honorable thing to do, but the courts upheld it.

I plan to take lead and go on front foot and accept error. Will get surveyor to calculate sliver of land that I estimate as 30sqm at $1400 per square meter it's going to be expensive. I've lawyered up and will ask solicitor to submit offer to farktards. Purchasing more land in long run is going to be better than spending money on demolition and same land.

Google Maps has this pretty cool feature of measuring distance, I've found it to be extremely accurate. Within centimetres of what surveyors charge $1k to do

It can measure distance well, but getting the position correct is a different matter.

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FormulaNova said..

I think the adverse possession thing is a bit more difficult/involved than you would assume. I think you need to be able to demonstrate that you had exclusive use of the property and paid the costs, including rates, for the land involved.

Even if you fenced off a neighbours sliver of land and used it as your own it would fail under these conditions.

This was the exact scenario for my place, part of the neighbour's land was fenced and used and it was recognised as adverse possession. It is fairly common in a lot of older towns where boundaries may have been a bit questionable and fence lines move over time, the actual boundary is not the same as what is on the title. In my case, I was building an extension on old house, removed the fence to do the building, came back and neighbour had built a new fence on the original title line. My house no longer compliant with local fire laws... ensue fun and games.

In this case the previous stone wall had been there for 130 years before he decided to enforce the title, which is exactly the intent of adverse possession!

In this case, as I said I doubt you'd have much of a chance as you're not actually 'possessing' the land. But it would buy you a year or so...

I'm also assuming that myscreenname's deck doesn't have council approval or you could rope your local council into the argument as well...

So all we ascertained here - is that Vodka idiot is likely the neighbour, and why the mods are sick n tired of the forums. Bloke can't even ask a question about something that's difficult and important.

Best wishes to myscreenname, gonna cost ya but be worth it.

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CH3MTR4IL5 said..

I'm also assuming that myscreenname's deck doesn't have council approval or you could rope your local council into the argument as well...

Interestingly enough deck was approved by council when it was built decades ago as faulty survey was submitted at that point. Surveyor must have used wrong peg.

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myscreenname said..

CH3MTR4IL5 said..

I'm also assuming that myscreenname's deck doesn't have council approval or you could rope your local council into the argument as well...

Interestingly enough deck was approved by council when it was built decades ago as faulty survey was submitted at that point. Surveyor must have used wrong peg.

If you paid the surveyor then they could be liable for costs.
Pretty good case for adverse possession actually if the deck has been there for decades

How do you know the new survey is correct?

I'd guess both the old survey and new survey were in fact equally incorrect, thus cancelling both out and meaning they are in fact correct#.

Which then means something has happened in the intervening years.

You could blame warping of the space-time continuum, you could blame tectonic plate movements, you could blame aeolian sediment transfer.

But it was probably climate change.

Or Covid.

Why don't you just yell "How dare you" over the fence and give them a stern look. That should fix the problem.



(#alternatively they were both correct and the architect was too dumb to understand so he put it where it is because it looked pretty.)

Oh yeah - does your neighbor store her surfboards under your overhanging deck - and if so have you a picture of her rack ?

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Squid Lips said..
How do you know the new survey is correct?

Because I think I know how mistake was made by surveyor decades ago. He (surveyors were not female 30 years ago) took measurements from wrong peg. Our Eastern boundary should have had two pegs, one for our property and one 3 meters along for the western boundry of property below it.

If surveyor did maths on his survey, like I did, he would have discovered he gave us 80sqm more land.

Back when this survey was done in 90s for extension no one cared, there are no fences - I liked that - it was mainly holiday homes. I live in a town of 800 people. Last property boom here was in 80s. Thanks to covid property prices have boomed, maybe as much as 70% in a year or two. I got here earlier and did the move to try to escape that suburban bs.

I'm probably a farktard also, but I moved here with intention of adapting rather than imposing suburban values on this town.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

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myscreenname said..

Squid Lips said..
How do you know the new survey is correct?

Because I think I know how mistake was made by surveyor decades ago. He (surveyors were not female 30 years ago) took measurements from wrong peg. Our Eastern boundary should have had two pegs, one for our property and one 3 meters along for the western boundry of property below it.

If surveyor did maths on his survey, like I did, he would have discovered he gave us 80sqm more land.

Back when this survey was done in 90s for extension no one cared, there are no fences - I liked that - it was mainly holiday homes. I live in a town of 800 people. Last property boom here was in 80s. Thanks to covid property prices have boomed, maybe as much as 70% in a year or two. I got here earlier and did the move to try to escape that suburban bs.

I'm probably a farktard also, but I moved here with intention of adapting rather than imposing suburban values on this town.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Do keep us informed.

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Buster fin said..
Do keep us informed.

In NSW we have Torrens Title, which means that adverse possession does not apply to only part of property.

Asked council to view property file and found surveying mistake was first made in 1974 and was subsequently used in another survey and 3 approved DA's. All measurements are out by 80m2

Options are demolish or purchase affected land. Eating humble pie and will try to purchase land back from farktards.

Slightly different but after many confused attempts at checking my boundaries it became apparent that although my house plans have been drawn up, approved and in possession of the city for 50 years, the actual lot is mirrored. So while the block is almost symmetrical, it's not, and the house sits a little off in reality and any additions I want to make don't align properly. I brought this up with the city and of course they want me to pay to prove that they've got it wrong. No, I'm not a surveyor, but it aint rocket surgery.

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myscreenname said..

In NSW we have Torrens Title, which means that adverse possession does not apply to only part of property.

Asked council to view property file and found surveying mistake was first made in 1974 and was subsequently used in another survey and 3 approved DA's. All measurements are out by 80m2

Options are demolish or purchase affected land. Eating humble pie and will try to purchase land back from farktards.

That suuucks. I guess if they are asshats about it would be a good one for the local paper, let everyone know about the rich city folk who come down here and steal your land...

Give Tracy whatshername call on Its a Current Affair Tonight (or whatever that tripe is called)

I once had a neighbour that wanted me to share the cost of demolishing and rebuilding a perfectly good fence because he had a survey done and found the fence was out by about 10 cm in some places. Fair enough if it was restricting access down a driveway or something, but it was just the back end of his yard and would have made zero difference to him.