One of my clients is an editor in El Cerrito, a little burg north of Berkeley. I’ve been doing various remodeling jobs for him for 3 years, with a little jewel box like Gazebo in the backyard as an ongoing project.
About 7 years ago, two of his next door neighbors got into a squabble about property lines. They share a driveway, I guess that had something to do with, not sure of the details. In the Google earth shot below, their houses are labeled “Nut Job” and “Shared Driveway.” My client is labeled “Paul.”
Nut Job hired a surveyor and he informed them they “had” some property they weren’t aware of. According to him, it went within a few feet of the window wall of one of Paul’s bedrooms, and included part of a front yard that Paul, and the previous two owners, had been watering since the 50s with an underground sprinkler system.
Nut Job’s now deceased husband had stakes with orange plastic ribbon tied on staked all over the portion of the yard that Paul had assumed for years was in his province, and left them there for months, with no other action.
Paul finally pulled them out one day – the man came over demanding they be put back in, Paul refused, adding “Are you mad?!”
The man died a while back, uncertain when, and the woman has been stepping up her efforts to claim this land and do something with it. She’s interrupted me a couple of times in my work to criticize something I was doing on the house that had nothing to do with the disputed piece of land, and both times gone into a lengthy description of how the particular bit of ground in question is hers.
A week ago, some men were working on Paul’s new air conditioning unit (photo below) which is just outside the disputed line, up against Paul’s house. It doesn’t help that she’s Chinese, with poor English skills. Her refrain is “my property – you try steal my property.” She was getting into the workmen’s face about it, when the AC unit isn’t even on the bit of land she wishes to claim!
She and her son recently tried to get a restraining order on Paul after he called her a moron for pulling out two shrubs he had planted (photo), about 2 feet from his house – this a few weeks ago – on the disputed bit of ground.
She brought her attorney with her to court, and her son, a guy who once told Paul that he (Paul) had “been misled” when he told him of the original sale agreement when he bought the house about 10 years ago. The judge read Paul’s account, looked at the photos, and then said: “I have one question, whose house is this?” (pointing to the photo of Paul’s house and the shrubs). All involved said it was Paul’s house. The judge said “I can’t believe you pulled up those shrubs,” and further upbraided the woman and her son before denying their request.
A few days ago, Paul got a letter from the woman’s attorney, apparently unbowed by the judge’s rebuke, saying that the woman was going to have another survey done and then have the sprinkler system ripped up and a new driveway put in.
A lawyer once told Paul about something called a prescriptive easement (I think), which means that since the property had been unused, abandoned essentially, by the “owner” and cared for by Paul and previous owners, that neither party could change it, it would remain as lawn.
To make matters stranger yet, the woman has a nice backyard which is completely overgrown with weeds and uncared for (photo). I don’t imagine this had much legal bearing but it does point to some instability, in that she has some yard space that is poorly cared for and appears obsessed about seizing a small portion of ground that is not that close to her house and not of that much use to her. She and the woman she shares the driveway with are both single, the traffic on the shared driveway is seriously light.
To make a long story short (too late for that) Paul is thinking he should hire an attorney – I’m trying to tell him that no way does he need to shell out thousands to beat this frivolous bit of crap. I’m thinking the Pre-Paid Legal thingy can get him enough advice to beat this on his own.
Thoughts?
The black lines are pretty close to what the deed shows for property lines. I can get the real thing in a couple of days.
The Bushes that were pulled up (replanted) and the AC unit.
In the last shot, the little triangular part in front is the only bit that they may have a claim to, if one honors the letter of the original property lines. They are under the impression they have claim to land within a few feet of the window behind there, and the son actually parked his SUV a few feet from the house once, no picture, unfortunately.
The woman's back yard, FWIW:
