Originally published at: Smug neighbor's property line grudge costs him big time in fence feud - Boing Boing
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She’s absolutely right that her neighbor moving the stakes is illegal.
She paid for the survey, she owns the stakes and they are on her property.
She says that she has made a good faith effort to resolve this dispute.
If he refuses to see reason, she should build her fence as close to the property line as the law allows and he can like it or lump it.
The builder should probably have never put in a driveway that close to the property line.
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In my state, pulling up survey stakes is a gross misdemeanor, and is also responsible for the resurvey.
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Move the tree while you can. When it grows larger that neighbor will not properly maintain it, then they’ll tell her it’s her tree and she has to cut it down.
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One other comment, she keeps saying she doesn’t have ‘a huge yard’. Yes, yes she does have a huge yard!
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Yeah, don’t do this. If you do, you are giving your neighbor an easement on your property. That would make changing your mind at some point in the future really difficult. Plus, depending on a lot of factors it’s not important to get into, that easement could burden whoever buys your house some day, if and when you sell.
Property line disputes are a lot more common than most people think. Once you have a survey done and you know for a fact where the property line is, you need to stick to that line. Even if you’re a nice person and you feel sorry for your neighbor.
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I had the same sort of issue with my first house.
Never did put a fence up myself but Google StreetView shows me that the folks who owned the house after me did. Doofus neighbours then had to cut into their embanked lawn to reroute their driveway. Proper t’ing.
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On thinking about it, the neighbor put in a tree, and she is thinking of cutting it down. Negative point to her.
Her yard looks baron, why not naturalize it? Another point taken away from her.
How about she put in some trees and not waste good lumber building a fence? In fact both neighbors need a naturalized garden, to promote butterfly migration.
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FWIW, our property line goes straight to the front corner of our neighbors’ driveway. I’m not sure if they know that, but OTOH I wouldn’t build a fence all the way to that corner, either.
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I’ll admit that I haven’t watched the videos but I’m generally suspicious of the veracity of ANY story originating on TikTok, by default. People manufacture all kinds of drama for clicks all the time, and that platform seems worse than most for that kind of thing. Before we spend too much time discussing the details of this story, what’s the confidence level that it’s even real?
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We had a survey done and our property line was on the far side of our neighbor’s driveway! We were nice about it, explained the situation and that we were just going to put our fence on the near side of her driveway, basically giving her like a 20 foot strip of our land. She was furious and hired two different surveyors of own, both of whom reported the same lines. She no longer speaks to us. 
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Maybe if she didn’t have a hostile neighbor trying to steal part of her yard, she’d have more time to do stuff like that… or maybe, she’s not interested. Either way, she’s not in the wrong here, and it’s kind of weird to go out of your way to figure out a way that she’s “wrong”… 
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Not a “game,” yo.
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IDK she doesn’t have anything planted in her yard. A person that isn’t interested in gardening is a little suspect. Also, we’re only getting one side of the story.
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She asked the Internet for advice, so kind of. With no shrubbery in her yard, and asking if she should cut down a healthy tree, I’m thinking she not build a fence. Maybe let the neighbor put in a few more trees, create a micro forest on that very large lot.
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These types of property line disputes are not at all rare. And watching the video, she doesn’t strike me as the internet drama creator type. I’m pretty confident this is legit.
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She did not, importantly, as for landscaping advice. She asked for advice on how petty to be in this property line dispute.
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Really? Why? People aren’t allowed to not be interested in gardening? I think there are far worse “red flags”, such as demanding that your neighbor give you part of your yard.
So, let him win, in other words. Bullshit.
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