Encroachment sounds like a nasty word, and it can be. An encroachment is when one property owner has something from his property sitting on land that is not part of his legal property. It can be as simple as a play set, a bit more complicated as a fence, worse yet a retaining wall, and the hardest is part of the garage or house.
How does an encroachment happen? In Minnesota survey's are not necessary at the time of transferring title. When you get new financing, the appraiser will drive to the property and do a plat drawing. The plat drawing simply says here are the supposed lot lines and here are the buildings. The new lender is happy with that. The new buyer is then happy. This goes on and no one realizes that some time back in history the encroachment occurred. It will come to the surface when one of the owners needs a survey for a specific reason.
This Saturday I showed a house in Eden Prairie and the seller on the his disclosure stated that there was an encroachment. His house was the first home built in 1986 on this cul-de-sac. His builder put the house 5 feet too close to the front yard set-back and 5 feet closer to the side yard set-back than it should have been. When his neighbor's house was built in 1990 that surverior found the errors. The city of Eden Prairie gave a variance and the front yard issue has been put to rest. The side yard issue remains. The situation gets a little dicer as the owner of the property I showed has constructed a retaining wall and put in gardens. All three owners of the house next door have said it is okay as long as he maintains it and keeps it looking nice.
He tells the potential buyer it is no problem. I see it as a problem. What if that neighbor changes his mind and demands the wall be removed? What if he moves and the new resident demands that it is moved? The present owner says fine, pay $10,000 more for my house and I will have it relandscaped before closing. Get this, his house is over-priced by $45,000 so this is almost comical. Stay tuned to see how this is resolved.
An owner that knows he has an encroachment should remedy that situation before he lists his property. Few new owners would want to take on the encroachment. We live in a society today where we just are not that friendly with our neighbors.
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