I hired a surveying firm a few years ago. A property line dispute with a neighbor. (Often seems to be the case, doesn't it?) So, I dug out our title. Turns out that I own the lane between the complaining neighbor, I pay taxes on it. It's a 20' wide "right of passage" (not an easement) given to the neighbors who live behind me. Since the neighbor I had the dispute with has property facing the main county road, she does NOT have this "right of passage". Hmmmm. That means I could have fenced off both sides of this lane as far as my property line.
Looking at the title, I noticed that the original surveryor back in the 40's, was a local named Bert Udell. Bert's son Jim runs the surveying company now. So, I just called Jim, asked him if he'd like to check out his dad's work.
Jim sent a crew. With a metal detector, they quickly found the buried markers, marked and staked the lines.
Turns out that over the years, the right of passage lane had widened considerably, of course encroaching onto my property since I hadn't fenced it.
I called a fence company, had 528 feet of 5' high hurricane fence built along my side of the lane. The neighbor who had jumped all over Cindy, saying our trees were encroaching into the lane was quite upset. She quieted down once she learned that if I wanted to be nasty, I could fence the other side, blocking her from using the lane.
Good fences make good neighbors...and I don't regret for a moment the money I paid Jim Udell to survey the place. He even came out to look at the uncovered markers...just wanted to look at his dad's work.
