TGJones Real Estate Services

Terry Lynch

Good fences supposedly make good neighbors.  With or without fences, people generally either have a pretty good idea where their property lines are, or aren’t interested enough in pushing the issue to formally define the lines. This tends to work out just fine.

Where things get complicated, though, is when something crosses the line. Broadly speaking, line crossers come in 3 categories.  Animals, plants and structures.  I put the categories in that order because the law attaches different significance to each of them.   Animals are the least troublesome with structures being the most troublesome.  Who hasn’t felt annoyed at having to scrape someone else’s dog poop off their lawn. Pets roam.   We all know that.   That’s why the City has leash laws. But the law considers pets to be mere annoyances and pays

very little attention to them, even when they are roving.   The animal has to do some damage to show up on the law’s radar.

Plants are another matter entirely. Particularly trees.   It is the nature of a plant to be in one place, and so they are considered to be a part of the property on which they grow. What about that tree just over the property line that blocks your view or drops apples on the sidewalk leading up to your front door?

The law pays attention to these situations and has answers for them. Often unclear, hard-to-apply-in-the-real-world answers, to be sure, but answers nevertheless. And what about the neighbor who chops down your tree because it got in the way of his view or because it drops apples on his front walk?  Your neighbor might have just bought your tree, and the judge is allowed give you 3 times the value of it.  Caveat emptor!

Structures are the most frightening thing.  The reason for this is an ancient English law that managed to make its way into Washington’s law.  I am always surprised at how many people have heard of the law of Adverse Possession.  Take another person’s real property and hold it against their will for 10 years and the property is yours to keep, forever.  It seems harsh, and it is. It’s harshness means that it is a hard thing to prove in a court in Washington, but it is not the court that creates the headaches.

If a corner of your new deck ended up inadvertently being build on your neighbor’s property, the fact that you might, just possibly, want to go down to court in 10 years’ time and take your chances proving Adverse Possession, means that a careful title insurer will not give your neighbor’s property title a clean bill of health.  When the neighbor goes to sell their house you might get a phone call or letter from a lawyer or a real estate agent trying to deal with the incursion.

The law has solutions.  Although not all of them are simple and inexpensive, enough of them are so that the problems are usually resolved quickly and amicably.   Most neighbor issues are satisfactorily resolved through respectful communication.  When it can’t be done, though, consider talking to a lawyer instead of suffering silently.

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