Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
“Property line, boundary line is off, and they didn’t know about it. Is there… Do you get involved with litigation along those lines? And I remember reading, and that’s one question. And the second one, I remember reading somewhere that…is there a period of time that if it goes by that, they actually lose the use of that piece of land, or a piece of property, or the area that is in dispute?”
Andre Clark – Real Estate Attorney – Los Angeles/San Bernardino County, CA
“Ok. So, let’s first talk about…One question deals with… what are your rights? I guess, when you find out that there’s an interference with boundary. One talked about how fraud could be related to that. If an owner or seller knows of a boundary defect, and they make some type of representation as to those boundaries when you’re buying the property, that could be a fraud claim. That
‘I would not have purchased this property if I knew about this boundary defect’.
And it could be something small as,
‘hey, your boundary is crossing in the middle of this tree’,
to,
‘hey, that acre of land is actually mine and not yours’.
Of course, the acre would be more important than dealing with a tree that can be removed. Now, when you’re dealing with a dispute over property lines, and without getting all technical, because I usually don’t go here. I had to know it for the bar. But if I had to review these rules before I advise somebody, I would actually go look at the rules again.
But generally, it’s called an encroachment… it’s when somebody else’s property is on your property, or encroaching your property. Yes, you usually have a certain time frame, like a statute of limitations, to do something about it, or it could be presumed that you allowed it to happen. What goes into that analysis is really your knowledge, You know about it… and certain things like that. So, just without getting into the law and saying something incorrectly about the law, especially an area that I usually don’t get involved in, I would say, yes, there are some timelines when you find out that there is a problem with your property line.
One, you have… you have statute limitations on lawsuits in general. And from the time that you know, if you don’t do nothing about it, it could be presumed that you accepted it. Because you have what they call easement, where you can get a right in land without even permission. Like express permission… it’s kind of like an adverse possession claim, where you used that easement, open and notoriously, and nobody ever says anything about it after so many years, that easement is an entrance in land. And that’s kind of a situation where an owner knew about it, or had an opportunity to know about it, but didn’t do anything, so they lost their right to do something.”
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