Q: what's more important a deed, proposed boundry or legal description of property when a survey cannot be completed
14yrs ago I purchased a lot in vanc wa. new home owner purchased to the east of me and claims my property and charged me with trespass.
with property being recorded incorrectly it is impossible to have survey done. why is no one looking at the legal description filed with the auditors'?
1 yr. of no trespass signs in my front yard. officers called to my house when we go out the front yard neighbors instigate arguments and call officers. security cameras into my resident windows. I have photos of these cameras.
A:
A professional surveyor can survey the property and place markers to show where the boundary lines are. The legal description as currently written may or may not be correct. If it is correct then creating physical markers to show where the boundary lines are will alleviate you and your neighbor guessing. If the legal description is incorrect then it may need to be fixed but it is unlikely that your legal description is wrong. What is more likely is that you need visual markers to show you where the property line is physically because you are going by indications such as an old fence line or where the garage sits and these could be in the wrong place.
If per your original legal description you bought property that is less then what you think it is, you will need to contact a lawyer and discuss your options. Sometimes a lawsuit will be needed to adjust the lot lines of not just your property but the property of your neighbors if there was a faulty survey done many years ago and all of your neightbor's have the same problem with their respective lot lines.
I worked on a case like that once where the original homesteader fancied the he was a good surveyor so he literally walked off the boundaries and guessed where there were slopes too steep to walk. This was before GPS was possible. 70 years later two neighbors had a dispute about their property line and this started an investigation that discovered that literally 50 homes had faulty boundary lines. It was quite a mess but it eventually got sorted out.
Anyway, there are various solutions. Sometimes the parties will just agree to a lot line adjustment so that the legal boundary is moved to reflect what the boundary has been for years even though it was wrong Sometimes the person whose boundary is "trespassing" can file an action for adverse possession and claim ownership of the extra strip of land. Sometimes the matter is resolved by creating an easement that doesn't move the boundary but permits some overlapping use, like putting up a fence.
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