How To Solve Property Disputes Without Sharp Instruments Bankrate Caret RightMain Menu Mortgage Mortgages Financing a home purchase Refinancing your existing loan Finding the right lender Additional Resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Bank Banking Compare Accounts Use calculators Get advice Bank reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Credit Card Credit cards Compare by category Compare by credit needed Compare by issuer Get advice Looking for the perfect credit card? Narrow your search with CardMatch Caret RightMain Menu Loan Loans Personal Loans Student Loans Auto Loans Loan calculators Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Invest Investing Best of Brokerages and robo-advisors Learn the basics Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Home Equity Home equity Get the best rates Lender reviews Use calculators Knowledge base Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Loan Home Improvement Real estate Selling a home Buying a home Finding the right agent Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Insurance Insurance Car insurance Homeowners insurance Other insurance Company reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Retirement Retirement Retirement plans & accounts Learn the basics Retirement calculators Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Advertiser Disclosure

Advertiser Disclosure

We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover.

How We Make Money

The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: Ernie Clark/Bangor Daily News August 07, 2020 Zach Wichter is a former mortgage reporter at Bankrate. He previously worked on the Business desk at The New York Times where he won a Loeb Award for breaking news, and covered aviation for The Points Guy. Bankrate logo

The Bankrate promise

At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo

The Bankrate promise

Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest financial decisions an individual will ever make. Our real estate reporters and editors focus on educating consumers about this life-changing transaction and how to navigate the complex and ever-changing housing market. From finding an agent to closing and beyond, our goal is to help you feel confident that you're making the best, and smartest, real estate deal possible. Bankrate logo

Editorial integrity

Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.

Key Principles

We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.

Editorial Independence

Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo

How we make money

You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. If you own where you live — whether it’s a suburban tract house, a on 40 acres in Maine or a studio apartment in a New York City — your home is your castle. While there’s no moat around your home like in the Middle Ages, encroachment can happen and that can lead to border and property disputes. In 2020, it’s unlikely that anyone trying to annex your abode will be of the sword-wielding variety, but that doesn’t mean houses and properties today are always safe from neighbors looking to extend their own territory, or that a property dispute can’t escalate to the point of using sharp objects as boundary-defining tools. between Gabriel Brawn and Theresa Laythe-Ritter and her family. The Brawns and the Ritters own adjoining properties in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, and when the Brawns thought the Ritters and their tenants were becoming less neighborly, Gabriel escalated a simmering dispute over a garage that was straddling the property line. Armed with an updated boundary survey and a Sawzall, Ritter sliced away the offending part of the structure, clearing his land of the incursion, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Property dispute basics

“Self-help actions” like that “do run the risk of you damaging someone’s personal property and being liable for the cost of that damage,” said Sarah A. McDaniel, a founding partner focusing on property law at Douglas McDaniel and Campo, a Westbrook, Maine-based firm. McDaniel was not involved in the garage-sawing case, but, she said, it illustrates how passionately people will defend their property rights. “The interesting thing to me is that people seem to fight more vigorously over smaller slivers of land,” she said. In her practice, McDaniel said the two most common types of disputes are boundary-related and . Boundary cases center on the exact limits of each person’s property, and easement cases focus on the rights one person has to use another’s property to access their own. One thing to keep in mind with easement cases: If, for example, you’ve let your neighbor cut across your property for many years, that right could pass on to the next owner. McDaniel said the real issue with easements are usually when the scope of the land use changes — like if a single resident built a road across your property to access their land, but then sold the plot to a developer who a whole new neighborhood that would still rely on that road. For either kind of case, Mainers are required to try to settle their dispute through mediation before going in front of a judge. McDaniel said it’s generally best to try to settle the conflict as quickly as possible outside of court, even if it might mean agreeing to terms and boundaries that aren’t exactly what you were hoping for. “No one wants to pay their jerk neighbor $5,000, but it’s better than paying your lawyer $50,000,” she said.

How homeowners associations HOAs fit in

Property disputes don’t just happen between people in single-family homes, either. Residents in (HOA) neighborhoods and urban co-ops and condos can squabble with their neighbors, too. “The major difference of course is that when you buy a home in a homeowners association or a co-op or condo, you are subjecting yourself to a set of rules that are established in a community’s governing document,” said Marc H. Schneider, managing partner at Schneider Buchel, a Garden City, N.Y.-based law firm that focuses on condo, co-op and HOA law. According to Schneider, living in one of can mean extra restrictions on use and maintenance of your property compared to those who live in unaffiliated single-family homes. “I find that the most common disputes are odors and noise-type complaints,” he said. “If you’re in a homeowner’s association where the houses are separated, the disputes might be that you’re blocking their view or you’ve put an item up that’s offensive to them.” While New York doesn’t require mediation for property disputes, Schneider said he usually recommends it anyway. “Try and put yourself in another person’s shoes. Try and resolve your dispute,” he said, because legal intervention can make things much more complicated. If you’re going to move into a condo, co-op or HOA, Schneider advised that “you have to make sure that you’re going to be comfortable living by rules that aren’t set by you.” No matter where you live, issues with your neighbors can be frustrating, but the experts said it’s best to try to solve them quickly and non-litigiously whenever possible. “No matter what the court says, you’re still going to be living next to each other,” McDaniel said.

Steps to settling a property dispute

Try to be neighborly. Do everything you can to settle the issue amongst yourselves. This may mean meeting the other party halfway, even when you believe you are 100 percent in the right. Get a mediator. If you can’t come to terms alone, it may be helpful to get a third party involved. If you live in a condo, co-op or HOA community, the board or managing company should be able to help. For single-family property owners, your best bet will be contacting a lawyer in your area who specializes in property disputes. You can find a mediator through the . Make sure you know the rules. That can mean everything from figuring out your property’s legal boundaries with a survey to reading up on your community’s house rules. Before you formalize a property dispute, make sure you know how it relates to any regulations. And when it comes to property lines and boundaries, it’s best to who can tell you exactly what the situation is. If all else fails, file a lawsuit. This is your last resort and often the most expensive one. Protracted legal battles can consume tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, so be sure the dispute is worth the cost. Don’t expect to recoup your legal costs if you win the case — that’s not a given. Keep future neighborhood peace in mind. Even once the dispute is settled, you and your neighbor probably aren’t going anywhere. You’ll still have to see them across the fence or around the block. The more contentious the dispute becomes, the more unpleasant it will be for you and your neighbor to enjoy your properties.

Learn more

SHARE: Zach Wichter is a former mortgage reporter at Bankrate. He previously worked on the Business desk at The New York Times where he won a Loeb Award for breaking news, and covered aviation for The Points Guy.

Related Articles