adverse possession fence line

If you get (and Please DO) an atty. Get one who specializes in Real Estate. There's a lot of yahoos out there that'll take any case & like your former one, not know much.

Ask a Realtor what atty is known to be a good one in their field or which one does their Real Estate Board use.

You also need to gain first hand knowledge so you can ask intelligent questions or you'll be paying for him teaching you definitions you could learn yourself. At $250.00 an hour or thereabouts, I'd learn as much as I could.

Remember, this is not about emotions or who did what. It's all about legal facts and money.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

The land was surveyed, and you have known from the start where your property lines are. It sounds like your neighbor took down his own fence, which you knew was on his property, and moved it to his property line, which sounds very reasonable and legal to me.

I don't think you have a leg to stand on.

Whew, some folks on here sure do have narrow viewpoints!!!!! So quick to reprimand and chide and criticize based on the merest, tiniest sliver of an OP's simplified stated facts.

The fences are a VISIBLE dividing line. OP relied on their demarcation for seven years without comment or protest from the neighbor. OP relied on what his lawyer said and it now appears after all these years that the lawyer was a TMI guy who left out a large part of the equation (apparently the most important part retroactively) when advising OP to not move the fences. This fine lawyer, however much paid for advice that was relied on by OP, did not add or elucidate "because the fences are not yours to move" or some such. This was an oral communication. Maybe mis-remembered after all these years? This is an hypothetical anyway. There are many factors not known, such as is the fence mover the same person who was silent for seven years? Or a new buyer? Or the seven year guy that didn't itch before but now does because he is going to put the property on the market? Did OP go down to the courthouse and check the neighbor's plat? And again, check to see not only: do the plats match each other? do the plats match the metes and bounds descriptions? OP is asking a very good question here and there are ramifications, seen and unseen.

As to TMI, most people at least instinctively understand that any phrase starting with the word "you" such as the words "you are" or "you knew" or "you have known" or "you always" or "you have" are about the most inflammatory and incendiary in any language!

of course I don't know OP (or anybody else on here) but I have a whole lot more respect for a person who comes on here on this forum with a question to broaden his/her knowledge and understanding than I do for a chimpanzee-type thug who suddenly moves fences physically with no intellectual level communication, question, warning or sign of respect (especially for an adjoining neighbor) whatsoever. That's not the way an honorable, honest person behaves. OP may be totally and 100 percent in the wrong but people in the wrong do not, as a rule, ask questions. They just pounce. Good neighbors make good fences .......

Comes from relying upon real estate agents and attorneys.

The fence is the boundary line of possession. The deed (metes and bounds) is the boundary line of ownership. Possession and ownership are two distinct ways of being seized with land. Ideally possession and ownership are joined but there are any number of reasons why they become separate over time. Improperly located fences are just one reason.

In this area if a new fence is installed the neighbor has 10 years to contest it. Each township has an elected official called a fence viewer who is called upon to settle boundary disputes before they get to the point where lead starts flying. I don't know whether having fence viewers is a concept Wisconsin has or not.

Tearing down a fence and re-installing it elsewhere without the agreement of the neighbor is an act of war. The one who installed the fence was not raised right and needs to be educated.

I take issue with this. Obviously the OP didn't put up the fence. Unless he had livestock that became uncontained when the fence was redone, I don't see how he has any say what the neighbor does with his own fence which is on his own land.

I agree, the OP knew from the start that the fence was not on the property line. I can fence my property any way I want and the neighbor has no right to expect to be able to use my land just because the fence is not on the property line.

I was raised to respect others property as I expect them to respect mine.

The "say" is a result of long occupancy of the land and a boundary fence that has been in existence a certain number of years. In Iowa that would be a fence older than 10 years. After this period of time the fence then becomes the law rather than the deed.

Don't get me wrong. The owner of the land is still by metes and bounds and deed but he might have a problem regaining possession when a fence has been there over 10 years. Going in and knocking down the fence by stealth or subterfuge to replace it with another (even though it might be on the metes and bounds boundary) is what is illegal and unethical.

Sounds to that the only illegal things going on were the OP using the neighbors spring.

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If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water your grass

Well, I'm with Palani here! In a way this topic is the exact same as the bugs in the grain question, how many bugs have to be (visible) in the grain before you do something about them such as eat them, sift them out, or toss them to the chickens? And I say differentiation is the highest order of intelligence.

And I especially say that moving a fence between properties without talking with the adjoining neighbor first is an Act of War! At best, it is boorish, even if the fence mover is completely in the right legally -- or thinks he is.

You have no idea where the fence was. Maybe it was 20 feet on the owners property, not the OP's property. Why would anyone have talk to anyone about it?


Did the OP every talk to the owner about using their spring before trespassing? It would be trespassing in my neighborhood whether it was fenced or not.

Maybe the spring owner got tired of the OP using their land with out asking.

Because that is the neighborly thing to do?

Right back at you. The OP is taking about legal action against the owner.
Have they done the neighborly thing and talked to the owner?

Evidently neighbors don't talk much in Wisconsin. Maybe there is a reason for that?

If the fence isn't ON the boundary, it's not a "boundary fence"

There's no rule in most states that says all fences must be ON property lines, and what a neighbor thinks doesn't matter if a fence is NOT on the line

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The OP bought the property knowing the boundary fence was not on the property line.

A supposition: The neighbor sought legal advice about what could turn into a legal dispute.

The neighbor erected a boundary fence on the surveyed property line.

By doing so, the neighbor placed the burden of proving adverse possession on the OP.

If the OP wanted to do the "neighborly" thing, they would have approached the neighbor at the time they took possession of the property and asked about an agreeable resolution. Instead, their slightly nefarious deed backlashed on the OP.

An old adage: Possession is 9/10ths of the law.

The boundary is between that of ownership and possession.

If you really believe this then I suggest you go up to YOUR neighbor and tell him you want to extend the possession limits of your property 20 feet in HIS direction and see what he has to say.

You haven't provided enough information for someone to determine if it is a line fence or not. Line fence laws vary from state to state.

The accuracy of surveys has improved over they years and what was intended to be a line fence may not actually be on the property line. Depending on the circumstances the fence may be considered the property line under some state laws.

Again, when a survey is done, there is the potential for one surveyor to come up with a different line than another. If a surveyor starts a survey on my property starting from the road and measuress off the distance to my back line and another surveyor starts a survey for the property owner behind me and measures off the indicated from my neighbors road to the back of his property, it is unlikely that they will always agree on what that back line should be.

Just a few thoughts.

Mike

You still speak in theories and not realities
The TRUE "boundary" is the surveyed property line

Putting a single line of fence down the center of your property doesn't somehow give the rest to anyone who wants it.

If it's INSIDE my deeded land he'd say "WHY are you asking ME?

You should spend more time in the real world

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The line or the boundary marker (ax on tree, stone, stream) matters not at all. It is the ACCEPTANCE of the line or marker. An existing fence is an AGREEMENT to set a line if it is set as a boundary between two properties.

But FENCING OFF a section of a property and not using for several decades does establish the LAW of the boundary.
You should spend more time in reading comprehension. My example extended your POSSESSION into his OWNERSHIP. That would place it OUTSIDE your deeded land.

I would say if your neighbor moved the fence to where the survey says it is, then it's where it should be legally. We dealt with this years ago in MT and the lawyer asked how much money did we want to spend to get it back. Granted it was less than a quarter acre, but the principle is the same.

Bob