Sorry to put you, or your brain cell to work, but I have a question. Could a person in that situation build an interior wall to separate the halves and declare ownership of his portion? He could put entry doors, etc on his half and say thanks for the storage shed, you're my new favorite neighbor. I have some more land if you'd like to build a pool.
I remember a while ago, my neighbor and I had little idea of exactly where the property line was, so we each over estimated by about three feet and mowed that much of each other's lawn. It wasn't a "thing" until he moved away and the new owners tried to take, no only the three feet, but another three feet as well. So, being the kind of guy I am, I hired a surveyor and had the property line marked out. Low and behold, it was about six feet the other way and boy were the new land owners pissed. They took me to court and when the judge heard the testimony from the surveyor, it was all over but the crying.
Last week I went through a similar property line dispute. I've owned the house I live in for 14 years. For 12 years I've owned the house two doors behind mine as well. The three properties in the row were all owned and built by the same family many many years ago and were all chain link fenced in when I purchased the properties. A year and a half ago a landlord purchased the house between my properties which had been vacant for 12 years. Last week I texted the new owner and told him I was going to be continuing my privacy fence as had been the plans for years and I would be on his property to install it. He texted me back that it's his fence. I texted that it's my fence and if the auction company sold it as being his he should call them. Long story short...... The next day there was a surveyor out checking property lines. Not only did it cost him the $400.00 survey fee but the fence is 100% mine and so is two more feet of the front corner past the original fence. Even better is that what was once a shared driveway between the two other houses is also all mine along with that whole fence and 18" in the back corner. His rental property now has no driveway. The next morning after I measured everything myself to verify, I sent him a nice text. Told him how I would be handling each corner and that his tenant had 72 hours to move her car from my driveway. The next day he removed the little section of his front fence and the front and back gate as they were attached to my post. Not sure but I believe if the gates were attached to my post then it's my gates as well. I didn't say anything but if he gets smart with me ever again I guess we will find out if he stole my gates and if he owes me for the year of driveway use. Could have just let me put up my privacy fence where the chain link was to begin with......
Haha. I love it. If he doesn't have an easement that property is quite possibly landlocked. Even if it isn't a house with no nearby parking isn't going to rent for much. I'd consult a lawyer but you probably have him over a barrel if he doesn't become a more considerate neighbor real quick.
I saw the pictures and the guy did an amazing job cutting a neat line through the garage. And to cap it off he tossed the debris back into what was left of the garage.
I mow and fertilize my lawn across the property line all the way to my neighbors driveway and garage, it's only about 10ft of his yard. No complaints and it just looks better. He's fine with it. If you want a good neighbor be a good neighbor. If I catch someone mowing my yard I'm gonna bring them a cold drink. LOL.
Caught my neighbor once mowing my front lawn. He had a riding mower...it was a good day..and he just did it. I baked him 2 dozen homade cookies. ( Single batchelor) he did me a favor & it was great.
@@kenc2257 I sold the house and am happy to be gone. I never even mentioned the 2 registered sex offenders that moved in behind me... That neighborhood sucked and that's all there is to it.
When I was 12 my elderly neighbor yelled at me for shoveling his driveway and sidewalk. Our neighbor on the other side is a great friend, the kind that sees you working on your car and offers to help (and you best believe he doesn't have to mow often).
Had my Milwaukee Sawzall stolen from out of my living room about six weeks ago (my fault for not putting it away after use) Two weeks ago a "friend" returned it to me claiming to have recovered it from a local shady character (pot - kettle). I am just grateful I don't have to spend 200 bucks on a replacement so I thanked him and locked my saw away. Protect your tools people!
Honestly im pretty impressed that he safely completed the job in two hours, considering all the rafters, shingles, nails joiners and wiring he mightve encountered. What a pro
@ If you google "homeowner saws neighbor’s garage in HALF," you'll find several pics [The US Sun website has 3 pics]. Looks like conventional framing to me; 2-car garage, with storage space above. The garage is actually attached to the main house, via an enclosed "breezeway" [not sure what that would be called, in the Northeast].
back in the 70's, my dad and I built a kit car, and part of the process was to cut VW bug basically in half with a sawzall. That was a great day for 13 year old boy.
@@sidewinderdrums that's sounds like a eye catcher! Can't recall ever seeing one. My 917 is a lot of fun getting some work done on it hope to get engine back in it soon. Peace
I was just telling Mrs. Claus that the feeling of power you get when operating a sawzall is amazing and unlike any other tool I have ever used. It really does make you consider cutting up anything you can see.
That's how I became a follower of yours, by watching the video of what you did to your old neighbor that would come onto your property! Laughed my arse off!
I saw one where he used a variety of tools to cut everything in the house in half, and I do mean everything, because this guy had a plasma cutter. Furniture, stove, refrigerator, sink...
I like when I hear you mention stories you’ve already talked about because its proof to me how honest you are because most people don’t tell the same lie twice.
Love the analogy, when you've got sawzall everything needs to be cut up! I bought a cheap one at a pawn shop and keep it out by the trashcans. With all the 'recent events in the news' everything comes from amazon now. Having a sawzall close to the cans makes short work of dispatching with the metric tons of cardboard ups has brought to our door!
I was asked by a neighbor to help him remove a 20 foot long dilapidated wooden boat that was left in the garage by the previous owner. I pulled out the Sawzall and cut it into pieces about the size of a car door. Then I moved the pieces to the curb for the bulk item pickup service by the solid waste department. There's something rather fun about demolishing stuff!!
@@sphinxrising1129 I honestly considered doing that at my last residence, but I'd have had to have bought the entire block. I'd rather just own the empty land somewhere else with a postage stamp of a house in the middle of it. Working on it...
By the way, Steve, a few years ago there was one even better than this in the Deer Isle area of Maine. A long time property dispute between two neighbors, it had to do with one neighbor having to sell a piece of the property to the other, else the neighbor couldn't get a septic permit. Neighbor wouldn't sell the piece. Finally the neighbor needing the septic used large equipment, a bulldozer or something, and bulldozed their house into the ocean! It just doesn't get any better than that! It's my favorite property dispute story of all time.
years ago a gentleman I knew in Northern BC advertised for a mail order bride, he got a taker, she moved in stayed 6 month, left him for a miner, but wanted half of my friends property, he proceeded to take a chainsaw to the addition to his cabin then called her up and told her to send her new man over to pick up her half of the cabin.
Sawz is super useful. When I was crashing and jumping cars for fifteen years we used it for all sorts of things when gutting the car to put the portable roll cage in (i.e. cutting the center post to pull the doors down, cutting the exhaust to make the car louder, etc.).
I remember a friend of mine needed a transmission for his 2003 Acura TL. Found a kid on craigslist who had wrecked his TL, so we contacted him, he had the wreck delivered then I used a sawzall to hack the transmission out of the front end. Luckily we could use some of the old parts off the old bad transmission, like pressure sensors, solenoids etc. I will never forget how much fun I had, it took me about of week while still going to work.
So funny about your sawzall. You made my morning. My wife said Oh No! as she bought me a sawzall for fathers day a few years ago which I have not used much but when needed it did the job very well indeed. There are blades available to cut up metal. Now no car is safe my neighbor better not park on my side of the driveway. Big smile.
Don't forget about the building codes. The codes will often specify how far a structure must be from the property lines and/or the neighbors existing structures. The building inspectors could order even more of the building removed.
Being a fellow car enthusiast you might appreciate this....I rebuild wrecked cars with salvage titles. I take my battery powered dewalt to the junk yard and cut cars in half to the absolute amazement of folks looking for single parts. The local lot is always confused on what to charge me for a front or rear end of an entire vehicle! I then load it into the rear half of a pickup truck turned heavy duty trailer. But I totally agree that with a sawzall in your hands I walk around my yard looking for things that could use a good cutting.
Steve! For the first time in 6 seasons this is the first time I've heard you reference a marriage! This almost settles a long running argument between my wife and I.
@@stevelehto what's the polite way to ask someone you don't know if they're gay? The correct answer probably is that you don't ask because it's not your business. But one of us speculated that might be the case. The Marriage reference "almost" clears that up.
@@stevelehto i didn't catch the wives, only the marriage. Thank you Steve. We enjoy your videos and will continue to do so. (Even if you are controlled by "big pizza")
I am a firefighter and we get training on reciprocating saws in extrication classes. They are truly fun and BTW in many cases are as effective and sometimes even more effective than the Jaws of Life as they popularly known.
Steve, you'd love a cut off saw. Firemen use 'em for quick access, brick layers, masons, ect. It's a gas motor driven circular abrasion blade. Actually uses a chainsaw motor. It would have made that 2hr. Garage chop a 20 minute job. Great tool.
Steve, I have been watching you videos for some time and find them informative and entertaining. I do not recall you ever mentioning that you were ever married.
I think I inherited my love of sawsalls from my grandmother. She put a new doorway into her house one afternoon.... Thankfully the house didn't fall down, it was a load baring wall.
I have a Ryobi Reciprocating saw. I bought it for yard work because they are somewhat safer than chainsaws. (My dad and the high school aged son of family friends were both injured by chainsaws when I was a kid.) I later replaced my mailbox and post and used the Ryobi Reciprocating saw to cut the old 4x4 mailbox post off at the ground. It cut through the post in about 3 seconds. Fast enough that I was surprised how fast it went.
I had a neighbor who mowed around some boundary trees on one of his property lines. That neighbor complained to him that he shouldn't mow around the trees he should just mow to the middle of them. I couldn't offer a full solution but what I did say to him was that anytime he felt like it he could cross the line on my side and mow my lawn and I would not be upset with him.
As an attorney for decades, I note that these types of property line issues happen all the time, although most folks aren't bold enough to saw up the neighbor's improvements. In this case, note that the guy's tolerance of the overlapping garage by the friendly neighbor is time which builds adverse possession. That tolerance period doesn't restart just because you change your view of the new neighbor. My professional experience with surveyors was such that I'd never, ever, reply on one survey to make this type of judgment. As a counterpoint, I once represented a property owner with a line dispute. He planted trees and installed a fence on the border property which he considered his. The neighbor rented a D-10 Catapiller bulldozer and plowed up the fence and trees in the disputed strip. In the end, my client sued, quieted title to the disputed realty, got a $45k damage judgment for the fence and trees. (Triple value damages on the trees.) The neighbor filed bankruptcy to evade the judgment, but the Court ruled that since it was based on his intentional misconduct, he had to pay the judgment. The neighbor ended up loosing his realty. (My guy bought it at foreclosure sale when the neighbor stopped making his payments to his bank.). Also, my former legal secretary had a neighboring developer tear down her garage one day without notice. It was mostly built over the surveyed property line many years prior. She received title to the neighboring strip of realty by adverse possession, as well as generous damages to replace the garage, court costs and full attorney's fees. The neighbor's lender for his strip mall development was not amused, and his strip mall got a lot smaller.
In many states the adverse possession has to be open and "hostile", so having permission to have the garage there is a form of license that does not create adverse possession rights, but merely a revockable license which this gentleman obviously revoked.
I too have a "sawzall." It is my choice for small limbs before my chainsaw. What's weird is if a limb I want cut requires 7% of the battery, I still don't go back to the house till the battery is dead. All the sudden there are many limbs and branches that cut off.
Best one ever. 2 properties that used to be one. Parents built a house for their daughter. Years later the daughter moves and sells her property, then parents die.. The new owner of the parents house installed the first TV satellite dish I ever saw. It was huge. Problem was the senor was over the former daughters property. When a tech went out later to work on it his neighbors wouldn't let him set the step ladder in their yard. He had to move it 5 feet back pore a new concrete footer move wiring etc. Six months later the former daughters property's septic system fails. 5 guesses where the drain field is.
This apparently happened in Minnesota also. But that story is much more interesting. When a father died he gave some property to a son and some to a daughter. The son was OK with the sister having a garage on his property until she sold it to someone. The new person didn't seem to be aware that the garage he bought was partially on the neighbors land.
When I was in my early twenties, I lived in an apartment, and there was a resident who constantly parked his car partly on the walkway to my apartment. I had a sawzall, but not an extension cord that was long enough. If Makita had been around, there may have been a car cut in half in my neighborhood.
My best friend and I were working on getting an Isuzu Rodeo ready to run the Gambler 500. We were at our local Pick and Pull and she commented "Sure would be nice if we could get this exhaust pipe off" the isuzu were were pulling parts off of. "Brina, use this." and I handed her my Ryobi reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade from harbor freight. "Oh, there's no way that will. . ." *GZZZZZRCH* "I NEED ONE OF THESE!" For Xmas I got her a full set of Kobalt tools, including her own reciprocating saw. :)
There is another story from 2015 of a man in Nashwauk, Minn. that not only sawed his neighbor's garage in half, but got a court ruling that it was legal.
When I bought my house I found out my fence was at least 6 feet over onto my side of the property line. I moved it back closer to the property line. The neighbor didn't like it but didn't do anything about it. It was actually his relative that sold the place to me. The dentist office is maybe 12 inches from my property line. I don't know how he was allowed to built so close.
Steve if you like sawsalls you definitely need to get an angle grinder. For certain jobs it's like a sawsall on steroids. Plus they make like a crazy amount of attachments for angle grinders. Such a versatile and fun tool.
Mine is a 40 years old B&D and it/we have hundreds if not thousands of hours of fun cutting cars apart, trimming trees, demolishing a house and cutting all kind of metal for projects. My standard operating mode is the blade in upside down. If it dies before me. I'll mount it with loving care on the garage wall.
about 1950, a new kroger's store was built next door to my grandmother's house in Oxford Ohio. There was a shared driveway next to the new Kroger's store and the other person that used that driveway would not removed his car from his garage at the end of the drive way. As far as I know that car is still blocked in. The New Kroger's store was built to a zero lot line in the middle of that drivway.
in many jurisdictions there is an easement between two properties, on which no one is supposed to build? A bit surprised the local govt didn’t seem to have a problem with a structure built across a property line, in the easement.
I've never heard a better ad for a Sawzall. Made my day. My little brother has my dad's old real Sawzall, I have a many year old Craftsman version. When there is an object in your way, what do you grab for???
I used my reciprocating saw to cut up a fiberglass hot tub. When I started I figured I'd chew through a half-dozen blades. When the hot tub was in manageable-sized pieces, the same blade was still in the saw. Those demo blades do what it says on the tin.
Most municipalities have laws that require land owners to not build anything within a certain distance from the property line. It varies, but it can be 5 feet, up to 60 feet, depending on the local law. That means the neighbor's garage was not just on the other guy's land, it was built in the setback area designated for his own property, and the municipality will require him to saw off even more of it, maybe even all of it.
Yep, a court decision clarified that paying of property taxes is a requirement for adverse possession so I don't think the neighbor would be able to successfully claim the land under the other half.
@ Given that my background is in Minnesota here is: Minnesota Statutes 541.02 RECOVERY OF REAL ESTATE, 15 YEARS. "No action for the recovery of real estate or the possession thereof shall be maintained unless it appears that the plaintiff, the plaintiff's ancestor, predecessor, or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises in question within 15 years before the beginning of the action. "Such limitations shall not be a bar to an action for the recovery of real estate assessed as tracts or parcels separate from other real estate, unless it appears that the party claiming title by adverse possession or the party's ancestor, predecessor, or grantor, or all of them together, shall have paid taxes on the real estate in question at least five consecutive years of the time during which the party claims these lands to have been occupied adversely. "The provisions of the preceding paragraph shall not apply to actions relating to the boundary line of lands, which boundary lines are established by adverse possession, or to actions concerning lands included between the government or platted line and the line established by such adverse possession, or to lands not assessed for taxation."
Paying of taxes is EVIDENCE of adverse possession but not always required. Remember you must hold out that you own the property, paying taxes is evidence of ownership but if the dispute is based on where the property lines are (and that is most cases) both sides had paid taxes, the issue is where is the line dividing the two properties. Please note you can have adverse possession to a right of way through someone else's property to your own. Since Right of ways are NOT taxed except as part of the property it is "Attached" to, there would be no taxes ever paid on the right of way, but the taxes on the property that the Right of Way is attached, is enough to satisfy any requirement of payment of taxes.
@3:05 Exactly this. People do not understand the value of having someone come out and mark the property lines. We have pipes in the ground that signify where each plotline is. It helps to prevent someone from inadvertently (or deliberate like one has done) building on our yard.
That's one badass surveyor... "you want me to mark this property line so you can do what?!" (he must also understand the feeling one gets from Sawzall usage) 😉
My old neighborhood was like that - the whole block. Each lot was a parallelogram instead of a rectangle. Back of my lot was 3 feet over Dans, Larry's was 3 feet over mine, Dan's was 3 feet over Jim's, and so on. If just one person decided to "correct" his lot line, the problem would cascade through the block and everyone would be getting lawyers. I circulated the legal description of "adverse posession" and everyone became cool with the current lines.
I'll also attest to the utility of the sawsall. When we removed a small jungle on one side of our property it was discovered the neighbor had moved our fence a couple of feet in order to enlarge his yard. Sawsall took care of that and a concrete saw remedied the portion of sidewalk that went over the property line. Bitch, bitch, bitch, threats of legal action etc., but all bark and no bite. Guy even had the audacity to lecture me on neighborliness!
One of the elements for adverse possession is that the possession must be adverse to the rightful owner before the time can begin tolling. The neighbor merely possessed the property at the mercy of, and with the permission of, the landowner. Therefore, the landowner's time limit to eject the neighbor's encroachment hadn't begun to toll, and he would not be at risk of losing the property via adverse possession, until the minimum number of years after the possession became adverse.
In some states you can defat a claim of adverse possession by granting the trespasser temporary permission. If you grant permission it is no longer adverse to your interest. As always check with a local attorney.
it is very interesting what kind of saw he chose. he definitely RECIPROCATED for the way he was being treated. ;> robot lady: are you telling me not to CLONE around? ;>
Picture it. Waterloo, Iowa 1998 at 1137 Bourland Avenue. It was apparent our neighbors disliked us the moment we moved into the home. It was a chaotic time. Occasionally my dog would sneak into their backyard and poop. I was unaware until the neighbor made my dog Yelp. We tangled between our homes. He ended up on the ground. To resolve the matter, he had an 8 foot privacy fence built on his property line. This was also our edge of the driveway. The fence went from my garage to the sidewalk. I couldn't see anything while backing up. So I installed a backup beeper on my truck to warn children on the sidewalk that I was backing out of my driveway. Sad part was I worked at night and came and went at odd hours... Beeping in the night. The fence was still there last I checked even though we moved out in 2000. We only lived their for 3 years during a chaotic period for us. But it scarred the neighborhood. LOL
