The saga with the land dispute rages on. With the impending arrival of #3 and the neighbor drama, we are one again considering selling our house. To avoid having to disclose a land dispute, I wanted to see if by some stroke of luck the issue had been resolved. I contact the surveyor one more time to see if they had come to an agreement as to the placement of the line. I did that, and in the process mentioned a couple of things that would indicate that the neighbor's survey was the one that was wrong.
1.) They contacted the DPW for the distance from my house to the street to create a starting point for their survey. They did not measure this distance. The distance given by the DPW is an estimate generated from an aerial photograph and is not suitable for surveying purposes. Had they measured it or really even used common sense, they would have realized the DPW's estimate is off by about 15 feet.
Furthermore, an easement for the street is not listed in my deed, which should have been a red flag since my lot was cut prior to even subdivision control regulations. In layman's terms, there's a pretty good chance the lot measurements did not include a street easement and thus, measurements begin at the street, not at the edge of an easement.
2.) After putting up flags, my neighbor's contractors began pulling up trees and disturbing the land that was assumed to be his. During this process they dug up a curious looking concrete cylinder. They discarded it in the no-man's land area as I call it - which is the portion of the property that both of us feel is ours and have pieces of paper laying claim to.
Apparently, his construction team thought nothing of this, but I immediately recognized the object as a landmark and snapped a few photographs. Since then, the brush has grown up to cover the structure and it is no longer visible, so I am glad that I took pictures when I did! I sent that photo to my surveyor for confirmation that it was in fact a landmark and was told that that sort of concrete landmark was extremely common on farmland back in the day. That makes sense, since both properties were used for agricultural purposes.
Now, I'm not laying blame on the neighbor in any way for pressing on with the building of his house during all of this. I'd have probably done the same thing - after all, when spending that type of money on a project of this magnitude, you pretty much want it done ASAP. It has been a year now, and his house still isn't finished. That's a LONG time for construction. However, his surveyor should have gotten on the matter ASAP. I guess it wasn't an issue to them because the town didn't give a rats behind that the two surveys were in disagreement. Perhaps the town should have cared a little more and then a fire would have been lit under the surveyor's butt to straighten things out. I can't say for sure.
One thing I can say for certain is that the land dispute drama has basically caused the neighbor and us to be at odds. Had there been some sort of agreement on the survey (and perhaps a little courtesy from the neighbor on several occassions), I'd be working on a scrap book of the construction to give as a welcome gift rather than emailing surveyors and giving the stink-eye. I can forgive a lot, but once you get on my bad side, you pretty much stay there.
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