Speaker 1: My neighbor is trying to steal my land and here's how having a survey is going to help me stop her. So a couple months ago, I bought this new rental property which was newly built and the contractor, well the builder, built a retaining wall to separate the properties. As you can see, her walkway is much lower than where my driveway is. So I just assumed that the property line was where the retaining wall is. I mean, that would make sense, right? The builder would put the wall where the property line is. But apparently, that's not the case. So a couple weeks ago, we had a massive storm and as you can see, my backyard is basically a mountain. Like this whole area is a very hilly mountainous area and when the builder built these two houses, they had to cut part of the rock. So basically, all the water comes flowing from down there all the way down and during like normal circumstances, it would soak into the ground through the rocks or if you see like this area's asphalt, it would just go down into the ground. But because it was a massive storm, it flowed just basically down the wall. So she threatens me by saying that she's going to call the Department of Buildings and have them issue me a violation unless I do something to stop the water immediately because this was illegal. Illegal? What the hell? What am I supposed to do? Stop the rain? That doesn't make any sense. So if I purposely built something like a drain that lets the water out into her property, then yes, that's illegal because I purposely drew water from my property and then threw it onto her property. But this is just normal runoff. There's no way it's illegal. If you take a look, this is what my neighbor's backyard looks like. Water is meant to flow downhill. So obviously, this side of the block is higher than my side of the block. All that water is literally just going to flow past there when it rains and go into his yard. And then it's going to continue down his yard to my yard into my neighbor's yard. And if you look at her property, like the water is just going to continue going down the block. That's what it's intended to do. The whole place is basically sloped. But whatever, like I'm going to be a good neighbor. She's going to live right there and I'm going to be around the area. So I don't want to fight with her for something so small. So I was like, all right, whatever. I'm just going to build a little trench wall thing to direct the water towards the front of the house. So as you see here, I built like a little channel on top of the wall, which basically makes the water flow along this channel instead of going towards her side. So now the water is just going to keep traveling this way and then go towards the street and then go into the gutter or something. So that should stop the water from going onto her side of the property. So the issue arises because I wanted to build the little channel on the right side of the fence, which is closer to her property. And she claims to me that her property line is where the fence is, not where the wall is, but where the fence is. So I can't build it on the other side of the fence. And that if I build it on the right side of the fence, I would be building on her property and that's unacceptable. OK, so here's where the survey comes in. She's claiming that that land is hers. I think it's mine. So I just want to check the survey. And would you look at that? Not only is the other side of the wall mine, but also six inches past that. So this is what a typical survey would look like. A survey is a legal document that basically defines exactly where your property line is. Normally it would have more information such as the surveyor's information, their surveyor's seal, owner's information, street names, that sort of stuff. According to this survey, my property line ends 9.46 feet off of the back corner of my building. So when I went and measured that out, that actually goes six inches past the retaining wall. So since this fence was built in the middle of the retaining wall and that whole retaining wall is mine, as well as six inches past that, that means anything one foot past this fence technically is a part of my land. And would you look at that? This lady basically built her retaining wall on my land. So the following morning, I confronted the lady and showed her the survey and pointed out to her that not only is the entire retaining wall on my side of the property line, it actually extends six inches past the retaining wall. So she's building her wall on my land. She then tells me that she paid the previous owner, the builder, for half the cost to build the wall, therefore she owns half of it. And if I'm saying that the entire wall is on my side, then I owe her for half of this money. What? That makes no sense. First of all, I have no idea what kind of deal you made with the previous owner. And that really has nothing to do with me. I mean, even if you did make a deal with him, if it's not recorded in the deed and it's not in the survey, then how am I supposed to know if that's true? Second of all, I don't owe her anything. How can she claim that since she paid for half of the wall, I have to pay her for that portion? If she got scammed, that's her problem. If she didn't know the law and she paid the other guy for half the wall, but didn't get it deeded, that has nothing to do with me. She then tells me she had the utility companies come out and take a look at the wall and then they installed her gas lines right next to the retaining wall. Well, that just means you had the utility companies come out and install your gas lines on my property. That utility companies have no idea where they're putting things half the times. That's not my problem. That's your problem. To be honest, I even think I was being a little harsh. Normally, I'm a pretty chill person and I want to get along with all of my neighbors because I don't want to fight with people. She's going to live there. I'm going to be around all the time. I don't want any conflicts. Our first conversation was her threatening to sue me and also reporting me to the Department of Buildings. I need to put my foot down and set the tone of how our relationship is going to move in the future. If I'm being honest, even if the pipes are installed in my land, like that six inch edge of my land, I'm not really going to do anything with that land anyway. I don't really care if it's there or not. And even if she had her retaining wall extend like six inches, as long as she doesn't section off that property, I'm okay with it. Because if she does section off that property, it changes the entire game. As you can see, her backyard is still under construction. So she's building it out. And I want to see exactly where she's going to section it off. Because if she puts her fence up right next to my fence over here, then technically she's building in my land. If she does that, then I'm going to have to sue her to get her to stop. If someone sections off a portion of your property and you don't do anything about it, after a certain amount of years, they can claim adverse possession. Laying claim to your land and having legal rights to your land, depending on your local laws, that could be having an easement on your property or them just straight up taking your property. Oh, and if you guys don't know what an easement is, an easement is basically you having to let somebody else use your land. So technically you still own and have to maintain the land, but somebody else has the right to use it. An easement is usually most common in like a shared driveway. If you have your property right up against somebody else's property and you have a shared driveway that goes to the backyard, both properties have an easement stating that the neighbor can use the driveway. So if you found this information helpful, please hit the thumbs up button. And if you want to learn more about real estate, please hit the subscribe button so you can watch more videos about real estate investing.