We are looking at buying a property however I have noticed that the boundary is significantly different to what is on the maps on file in the lands department. According to the lands department there should have approximately 35 metres of river along the back boundary however when we walked around the property we noticed that the person who owns the property behind has moved their fenceline to this side of the river which makes it look like they own BOTH sides of the riverbank.
When we went back into town I asked around & some of the people in town said that the fences have been like that for "nigh on 10 years now" & because no one has made any attempt to contact the owner of the fence then he/she now officially owns that part of the property so if we bought it we would have no access to the river.
I don’t want to call the solicitor because every time I call them they seem to add another 0.00 to the already extortionate bill so does anyone actually KNOW if there is any way we could have this other person’s boundary fences moved off what should be ours (if we buy the property) or is he/she allowed to leave the fences there because they have been there for 10 years?
We are in Australia.
Here you also do not own the river but you can own within a certain distance of it & in some states you can fence up TO the river & across it if you own both sides.
The public record shows that the place we a re looking at ends AT the river however the guy on the other side of the river has fenced ACROSS the river & at least 30 metres onto this side of the river.
I contacted the agent & they assure me that the land we are looking at goes right up to the river & that if we buy it we can just pull down the fences but I am concerned that they are just saying whetever they think will get them the sale!
We won’t just go ahead & buy without the solicitor but I was hoping to get a general idea before we showed too much interest…I don’t want to get all excited & then find out that because of some rediculous squatters rights bullsh*t law we would not be getting the river access!!!!!
Are you thinking about selling your home yourself? then
I feel like you should have a petition signed from the community and take it to a higher level. There are other people besides the solicitor that will help you. Just dont stop right there if you do nothing will happen.
I don’t know if squater’s rights really exist but you should contact the person who thinks they own that property, take it to court and let the courts settle it, if they decide that the other person owns the land then you should take the person who sold you the land to court for selling land they had no right to sell.
Dont have any idea where you live. In Texas you can not have ownership of a flowing river. You own the land to the river but you do not own the river. If you were buying that piece of land in texas, the land office in your county and the title company that you deal with both have the records of where the real property line is. You only get to buy a piece of land if it legally for sale. If the other guy has claimed squatter rights on the property he could win, but I doubt 10 years is long enough for that to work. If you are in the US then you have free local access to the legal libraries. This is a little known fact. But you can go into a public law library and look up anything you want. Without knowing where you live, there is no way for me to answer that question.
Without knowing the laws pertaining to the location of the property, the legal concept of "adverse possession" may apply.
The concept states that if a person claims the real property of another for more than X continuous years without the consent of the actual owner, then such person gets legal title to that real property.
Note – If the use of the land was permissive (e.g., Person A told Person B that they could put their fence on the other side of the river so their sheep could get to the water in the river), then the concept does not apply.
There are also a number of issues which may keep the concept from applying.
In this case, getting the solicitor involved is important unless you are willing to buy the property with this new boundary line.