Neighbor is encroaching on my property line to sell their house
Neighbors often mow or expand into adjacent yards while listing their home to make their property look larger, usually taking advantage of times you are away. This creates sudden boundary disputes that derail home sales and leave you scrambling to hire a surveyor and untangle property lines.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Waiting for a professional property survey
- 2Installing a fence
- 3Mowing the lawn down to the dirt
- 4Putting up warning signs, gnomes, or flags to deter the neighbors
- 5Having the neighbor's realtor dismantle and remove the shed
- 6Hiring a real estate lawyer
- 7Rolling the shed to a new location using PVC pipes
- 8Checking closing property plats
- 9Talking to previous owners
- 10Asking the neighbor politely
- 11Considering hiring a surveyor or real estate attorney
- 12Remove the attachment yourself
- 13Confront or talk to the neighbor about the modification
- 14Pruning the aggressive neighboring plant back to a sensible shape
- 15Giving the neighboring bush a hard prune back
- 16talking to the mother directly
- 17adjusting camera motion settings
- 18using automated motion announcements to deter people
- 19Pitchforks are the way to move rotten cabbage. Throw them back over the fence
- 20Make coleslaw
- 21Applying non-selective herbicides like Roundup
- 22Hand-digging and pulling up the encroaching grass on hands and knees
- 23Using alternative selective herbicides like Drive/XLR8
- 24getting a formal land survey
- 25planting native ground cover or ivy to support the soil
- 26sharing the expense through an HOA
- 27bringing it up casually next time you see her to ask
- 28asking the neighbor directly how far they want you to mow
- 29Contacting the police to perform a welfare check on the uncooperative neighbor
- 30stopping maintenance on the affected area and letting it grow wild
- 31spraying weed killer or brush killer along the property line
- 32building a separate fence to block the view
- 33cleaning up the neighbor's yard oneself to avoid dealing with the nuisance
- 34moving the plywood yourself
- 35talking directly and firmly to the crew about property boundaries
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The neighbor now cuts approximately 50 feet into our yard in an attempt to sell their house as a “spacious backyard “.”source ↗
“This is always done when we aren’t home.”source ↗
“As the neighbor continues to cut further and further into our property. I have finally heard from a Surveyor and should be having the property surveyed soon.”source ↗
“My shed encroaches on my neighbor's property by 3 feet. Now he's selling and the buyers are upset.”source ↗
“Now I’m stuck. I don’t want to start a neighborhood feud, but that two feet makes a real difference, I was planning to put in a raised garden bed right there.”source ↗
“Would you all push this legally or let it go? What’s my best move without being that neighbor?”source ↗
“Came home yesterday and found that my downstairs neighbour had put this contraption on my natural gas furnace vent/exhaust pipe.”source ↗
“Now the brush has gotten out of control next to the garage (growing weed-type trees) and it’s annoying for me to mow around.”source ↗
“The brush sprouted poison sumac which spread into our yard and got me pretty good for weeks.”source ↗
“I asked him to clean it up years ago before because I was having a hard time mowing around it and he did but now it’s even worse than before.”source ↗
“I feel awkward continually asking him since it is in his yard.”source ↗
“I noticed as the bush on the right grew, the hydrangea plant on the left worsened”source ↗
“My adult daughter's house, has found standing water on tile floor in dining room in middle of room and also on back porch.”source ↗
“Neighbor did not answer door or phone after months of trying.”source ↗
“She stated she is not over watering and unconcerned said it's not her problem .”source ↗
“That lilac-looking fella on the right is definitely bullying your hydrangea out of light and root space, give it a hard prune back so the poor thing can breathe”source ↗
“If you're losing sleep and mad at your neighbor, it's not worth it.”source ↗
“The problem is their contractor keeps parking in front of my house and using my driveway as a staging area.”source ↗
“Yesterday was the last straw. I got home from work and there was a stack of plywood sitting in my driveway.”source ↗
“So now I'm stuck: * Do I talk to the neighbor or the contractor? * What do I actually say that doesn't come across as hostile? * If I talk to the contractor and they blow me off, what's the next step? * Do I call the city? The non-emergency police line? Does any of that actually help, or does it just make me look like the bad guy? * Is there a way to be firm about my property line without poisoning the relationship with the new neighbors?”source ↗
“i’m starting to wonder if this is some sort of message or if she’s mad that my husband has mowed her front lawn occasionally? lol”source ↗
“so does anyone know if she’s trying to silently say something? lol”source ↗
“The problem started last year i kept getting nofis from my ring app (we all had rings) from my front porch of two of the little ones walking up on it or one time threw a water balloon at it.”source ↗
“Should I go talk to her to clear the air or let things be silent.”source ↗
“my neighbor next door in my duplex keeps throwing her cabbages onto my side of the lawn because she thinks it is funny when I go over them with my riding lawn mower, and it smells terrible. Any advice?”source ↗
“the neighbor keeps eroding the dirt with his sprinklers and blaming her sprinklers and plants.”source ↗
“He is the right house and wants her to put up a retaining wall where her plants are.”source ↗
“This area close to my neighbors is being encroached by their grass that I want to say is called Johnson grass but idk what breed exactly. It's really invasive and grows shoots far and fast.”source ↗
“I've tried Roundup to kill to try to start over but their grass is almost immune to the stuff.”source ↗
“Aside from getting on my hands and knees and digging up their grass, is there any better way to either kill it all here and replant with Bermuda in the fall?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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