Well, your wall was exactly where it should have been. Exactly. Meaning Brent hadn’t just moved the boundary a little. He’d shoved it four full feet onto my land. Now, here’s where things could have ended peacefully. If Brent had just used common sense, I could have walked over with the survey results. We could have had an adult conversation.
Maybe his contractors would shift the design a bit. Inconvenience, sure, but manageable. So, I tried that first. I walked over with the survey report and knocked on his door. Brent answered, wearing sunglasses and holding what looked like a contractor’s site plan. I handed him the paperwork. Professional survey, I said.
The property lines exactly where the wall used to be. He skimmed the first page, maybe 5 seconds, then handed it back like it was a restaurant menu he didn’t like. Yeah, I don’t really agree with that. You ever hear a sentence so ridiculous your brain needs a second to process it? I don’t agree with that. Like property lines were a political opinion.
Brent, I said slowly. This is a licensed survey. While the contractors already poured the pool frame, he replied, gesturing toward the backyard. And moving everything now would be a nightmare. Translation: This problem is inconvenient for me, therefore it must not exist. So that’s when I stopped trying to solve it neighbor to neighbor because from a legal perspective, once someone has been informed they’re encroaching and they keep building anyway, the court tends to lose patience very quickly.
That afternoon, I met with a real estate attorney. Her name was Dana. I explained everything. The demolished wall, the fence, the pool deck creeping into my yard. She looked through the survey report, nodded once, and said something that honestly made me feel a lot better. Oh, this is going to be easy.
First step was a formal cease and desist letter. Basically, a legal notice saying, “You are currently trespassing and building on someone else’s property. Stop immediately or further legal action will follow.” Dana sent it by certified mail. We also filed for a temporary injunction, which is essentially asking the court to freeze construction until the dispute is resolved.
Now, if Brent had been smart, again, big if. That letter should have scared him enough to pause everything. Because once lawyers start putting things in writing, judges start paying attention. But Brent, he ignored it completely. Construction kept going. Truck showed up. Workers poured more concrete.
By the end of the week, the pool deck was almost finished, stretching proudly right up to that cheap wooden fence he’d shoved four feet into my yard. I remember standing in my kitchen looking out the window thinking, “This guy really believes he’s going to get away with this,” which legally speaking was about the worst possible decision he could have made.
Because now the case wasn’t just about a boundary disagreement anymore. Now it was willful encroachment. So Dana filed the lawsuit, trespassing, property damage, encroachment, and reimbursement for the destroyed stone wall. About 6 weeks later, we were sitting in a county courtroom. Brent showed up wearing a suit that looked like he bought it the night before.
His evidence was exactly what you’d expect, a printed screenshot of the same phone app map he’d shown me in the backyard. Meanwhile, Dana handed the judge three things: the certified plat map, the professional survey, and photos of the original wall before it was demolished. The judge looked at Brent’s paper first, then looked at our stack of documents, then back at Brent.
