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Jaguar wrote: I worked for a surveyor in the '80s and we went to this high dollar development to do a lot survey for a sale. We found the lot, set the transit up on a corner, did a shot to the first corner, second corner, then when I turned it to the last corner there was a house about 3 feet over the property line. we quietly went to the second corner and got the shot to the last legal corner, did a shot to the corner of the house over the property line, and got out before anyone asked us any questions. Once back at the office, we drew up the plat with the corner of the house showing over the line, turned it over to the client, and mayhem ensued. We ended up back there three times showing the client, the encroach, and a lawyer where the property lines were.

Turned into a nightmare, but I left that line of work before it was ever resolved.

Maybe they should have held a "garage sale!"

In California a survey is very seldom done upon sale of the property. At best, one of the real estate brokers wanders around in the bushes trying to imagine where the corners are, sometimes with disquieting results. Corner markers get moved, lost, imagined, the stuff of legend and folklore. Easements are often casually created, running through living rooms by the description... lots of work for us lawyers straightening this out.

I don't know how much of a problem it is in Texas where surveys are much more common when buying property, but here in California, a good many would be surprised to learn the property line they are so enthusiastically defending isn't where they think it is.

I've spent the last 40 years in title and real estate, in various roles. More than once I have handled a situation where a house was built, not merely across property lines but entirely on the wrong lot! I've dealt with swimming pools built on what turns out to be the neighbor's yard. In one case, a man sold ten lots over several years starting back in the 30's, each described by metes and bounds as 200 feet wide. When I got into it, someone had done a survey and discovered that from the north end of the northern most property to the south end of the southern most property was only 1800 feet! After untold thousands of dollars in surveying, lawyers fees, court fights etc., we finally got the neighborhood calmed down, each owning along the lines of possession, but none had 200 feet!

It is not asking too much for someone who has a need to access your property, wherever it is, to ask permission, and agree to restore it to the condition before entry, and most of the time this will be respected, honored and observed, and everyone lives happily ever after.