Man gets revenge on neighbor who is petty with property limits; makes him replace entire fence. AITA? MAJOR UPDATE.
When this man is set on getting back at his neighbor for 'endangering' his children, he asks Reddit:
"Neighbor was petty on property limits... now I'm going to make him replace his whole fence AITA?"
When my contractor installed the fence around my property, he made a mistake and went over the property line by 4cm, along my neighbors' hedge. My neighbor made a fuss of it, and even dragged us to court (we lost, obviously - he was petty, but that's the law).
However, we found out today that his dog is amongst the "dangerous breeds", so his fence should be 2m high, with a concrete base, around all of his property. Turns out the current one is 1m40, with no base. Guess what complaint I'm going to file with the police?
(I have 3 small kids who like to play in the yard, and he has trained his dog to bark whenever they go outside. He's a heinous guy, for real.) AITA?
Let's take a look at some of the top responses; many readers shared their own personal stories too:
justprom7 writes:
That's the neighbors fault, not the OPs. The neighbor never should have bought a dog of that breed without having the proper fence put in first. Just because the OP was in the wrong for his fence doesn't give the neighbor carte blanche to break the law and endanger OPs kids.
The neighbor, if he's even a halfway decent person, will pay to fix his fence rather than make his dog pay for his own mistake with it's life.
kakamiranda writes:
So you tried to encroach on somebody’s land, and because they wouldn’t allow you to position yourself to claim their land as yours in a decade, you’re going to mess with their life and peace even more?
I’m in the middle of the process of suing my neighbor for encroachment and from the bottom of my heart, gfys. Why don’t you direct your frustrations at the contractor that screwed you? Your fence also causes boundary issues if they ever want to sell their property and move. I don’t like you.
Edit to your edits: Sounds like this is still a “you and your contractor” problem. Your neighbor was just minding their business and one day you inched your way into their property, intentionally or not.
As someone who has autism, I think it’s wild that according to your posts you are a grown man diagnosed with autism that can’t fathom how crossing boundaries isn’t okay even after being told literally, legally, physically, measurably you have. Your neighbor cleared up issues you would also have in the future if you wanted to sell your home. You’re quite the AH.
tossedworldsalad writes:
My neighbor put up a fence 4 inches from the property line into his yard. When it was time for us to install our fence, rather than connect to his, and have some of his yard in our fence, we put our fence exactly on the property line, leaving that four-inch space between his fence and ours.
Our HOA made us take down our fence and connect to his fence because they said that there was no way to maintain the 4 inch space and that weeds and grass would grow and look unsightly.
So basically my HOA forced us to have our neighbors’ yard inside our fence. We don’t live there anymore. I wonder if it has caused problems with future residents.
jasminejewel writes:
First, my old neighbor watched as my contractor built my fence, THEN told me I had to move it over by a few inches. The property line was odd, since it was on my side of a road, and he was on the other side.
He and his wife were VICIOUS, there was not much I could do, and I eventually moved. Once, he threatened me because someone complained to the fire department about his constant all-day burning of garbage.
He called and threatened me with having his large family retaliate. I told him I had just called the sheriff, who I spoke with frequently, that I kept a detailed log on all his illegal actions, had enough money to keep him busy with lawyers forever, and if ONE PINE NEEDLE in my yard was moved, I would eat him court.
I was bluffing, but he believed me, thank God. Before I left, I plastered his entire area with intrusive, fast growing grassy weed seeds.
darthpartker writes:
Our neighbor recently had their fence replaced with a new one. The fence company had it surveyed (a permit requirement in our municipality) and discovered that a 12 ft section where their property contacts ours was from 3 ft to 5 ft over their property line.
So now I have a nice little wedge-shaped garden storage area between the old fence and their new one…
The bylaw here also specifies a maximum fence location variance from the surveyed lot line of 4”. so that 4cm would not have been a problem here.
And the side facing the neighbor (the one not building the fence) must be the “better finished” side — no exposed posts, properly stained or painted and with zero through-fence visibility (staggered pickets or offset rails). If you want your side to look good too, you have to face both sides…
Then, OP provides this first update about the dilemma:
Some people think I "encroached on his land". To be completely clear, we're talking 4cm in a 10m line, so that's 0.4 square meters. (bad math).
*My contractor told me he wouldn't move it because that's in the margin of error for plans, and it's along a f-g hedge! (edit to the edit, because I just woke up brain no work good)
I wasn't set on revenge. Like I said, we lost, fair and square, because the law is the law. BUT, since he always yelled about the law and his rights, what a hypocrite to abstain from mentioning he is in violation too. So, since we were both in violation of property limit law, I'm only making sure we all end in compliance. AITA though?
Then, OP provides this MAJOR UPDATE about this situation:
Surveyor came today to install the new boundary markers. And in a very happy (for us) twist, they were actually "stealing" more land from us than we were from them, just on the other stretch of our shared limit.
Their fence was off by 2° over 17 mètres, meaning overall they took over our property by 5.1 square meters. And the back of their shed is too close to the line of the new survey according to zoning regulation.
We are laughing. It's hysterical for us that they went to all the trouble of making us pay for a survey over 0.4 square meters, but are going to end up losing part of theirs, maybe have to tear their shed (not sure yet if we're going to be magnanimous on this point and not report them on that), and of course, the dog-proof fencing all around their property.
So to all the people saying I was "stealing from them", I hope you have enough stones to throw their way too. I won't comment on this post or justify myself.