Clearing for fence in Texas

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callmefence said:
To my knowledge a fence never becomes a property line unless the property is surveyed and replatted that way. I look at lots of platts and it'll say called as fence on it. If the fence gets torn down and rebuilt the property line stays in the same place. The idea that a fence becomes the property line is for the most part wives tale.
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You're absolutely right in Texas.
Only thing that marks a property line is a survey.
 
callmefence said:
To my knowledge a fence never becomes a property line unless the property is surveyed and replatted that way. I look at lots of platts and it'll say called as fence on it. If the fence gets torn down and rebuilt the property line stays in the same place. The idea that a fence becomes the property line is for the most part wives tale.
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That can vary depending on where you live. Fence lines can become property lines under Wisconsin's adverse possession law.

 
The "general" rules of adverse possession are:
  • Open and Notorious. The person seeking adverse possession must occupy a parcel of land in a manner that is open and obvious.
  • Exclusive.
  • Hostile (without the original owners consent or acquiesce)
  • Statutory Period (a lot of places this is 7 years)
  • Continuous and Uninterrupted
This can vary by state.
 
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callmefence said:
Thread is titled clearing fence lines in Texas...lol
I'm sure a " good respectable lawyer" could straighten us out to bad we don't have one.
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If threads got shut down here whenever they drifted from the original topic most of them wouldn't last more than three posts.
 
sstterry said:
The "general" rules of adverse possession are:
  • Open and Notorious. The person seeking adverse possession must occupy a parcel of land in a manner that is open and obvious.
  • Exclusive.
  • Hostile (without the original owners consent or acquiesce)
  • Statutory Period (a lot of places this is 7 years)
  • Continuous and Uninterrupted
This can vary by state.
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The couple of instances I'm aware of involved a transfer of property without a survey. Farmer A allows neighbor B to fence a corner of A's property and graze it. Years go by, and farmer A passes away. His family sells the property to a recreational hunter, C, who doesn't have the land surveyed and just assumes the fence line is the property line. More years go by. Hunter C realizes his land technically includes part of Neighbor B's pasture, and wants to take back possession. Too bad, so sad.
 
I had a neighbor that was very well to do whose farm adjoins mine. Among other things, he owned a trucking company. The main lot of the company stretched for several hundred yards along the railroad tracks. There was a chainlink fence that had been there for at least 30 years about 15 feet from the track. Out of the blue, he gets a letter from the RR telling him that the fence was on their land and they wanted 10 years' worth of rent (RRs are notorious for money grabs like this). He came to me and I politely sent the RR legal dept a letter telling them how long the fence had been there and we were going to claim ownership of all of the property under adverse possession. Surprisingly we never heard another word from them about any alleged rent.
 
Buck Randall said:
The couple of instances I'm aware of involved a transfer of property without a survey. Farmer A allows neighbor B to fence a corner of A's property and graze it. Years go by, and farmer A passes away. His family sells the property to a recreational hunter, C, who doesn't have the land surveyed and just assumes the fence line is the property line. More years go by. Hunter C realizes his land technically includes part of Neighbor B's pasture, and wants to take back possession. Too bad, so sad.
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Someone was paying taxes on the land.??if it was c he must've had a hack lawyer.
 
callmefence said:
Someone was paying taxes on the land.??if it was c he must've had a hack lawyer.
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What does paying taxes have to do with it? He bought what he thought was twenty acres. Turned out that roughly an acre and a half was on the other side of the road and fenced in by the neighbor. By the time he went to contest it, it legally belonged to the neighbor. The moral of the story is to never buy land without a survey.
 
Buck Randall said:
What does paying taxes have to do with it? He bought what he thought was twenty acres. Turned out that roughly an acre and a half was on the other side of the road and fenced in by the neighbor. By the time he went to contest it, it legally belonged to the neighbor. The moral of the story is to never buy land without a survey.
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The county bills the deeded owner of the land. It's pretty simple really.
I agree don't buy land without a survey..duh. But I disagree on adverse possession being that simple. It exist in uncontested cases.
But would be very rare imo in contested situations.
Once upon a time declared property lines were more common. Today it's kinda like bigfoot sightings..
 
callmefence said:
The county bills the deeded owner of the land. It's pretty simple really.
I agree don't buy land without a survey..duh. But I disagree on adverse possession being that simple. It exist in uncontested cases.
But would be very rare imo in contested situations.
Once upon a time declared property lines were more common. Today it's kinda like bigfoot sightings..
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His lawyer sent a letter. Neighbor's lawyer replied with a letter essentially saying, "The law is on our side; try it."

Cases like that are probably not common, but it pretty clearly fit the legal definition for adverse possession. The property in question had been fenced in and used continuously by one family for more than 50 years, and the person who formally owned it didn't even realize it was his for more than 20 years.
 
In Minnesota adverse possession applies. Unless the fence is contested or an agreement recorded the fence will become the property line. I would have to look up the years for adverse possession. When land was cheap and neighbors were ok many times fences went around obstacles. Or you let a neighbor make a lane through your land.
 
farmguy said:
In Minnesota adverse possession applies. Unless the fence is contested or an agreement recorded the fence will become the property line. I would have to look up the years for adverse possession. When land was cheap and neighbors were ok many times fences went around obstacles. Or you let a neighbor make a lane through your land.
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MN-15 yrs. and payment of taxes for 5 consecutive years along with what I posted above.
 
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the laws were designed to protect the property owner from "homesteaders" because properties in Texas are so large it can be difficult for landowners to locate squatters. Claiming adverse possession can be done but it is difficult and paying the property taxes on the contested property in itself doesn't mean a thing. There has to be other criteria in play to claim AP.

OP - were you able to contact your neighbor and work this out?
 
Dusty Britches said:
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the laws were designed to protect the property owner from "homesteaders" because properties in Texas are so large it can be difficult for landowners to locate squatters. Claiming adverse possession can be done but it is difficult and paying the property taxes on the contested property in itself doesn't mean a thing. There has to be other criteria in play to claim AP.

OP - were you able to contact your neighbor and work this out?
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The last time I looked at Texas adverse possession documentation, it seemed most judges made the applicant and adversary go thru 3rd party arbitration before the judge would issue a ruling.
 
Dusty Britches said:
Meanwhile, back in Texas, the laws were designed to protect the property owner from "homesteaders" because properties in Texas are so large it can be difficult for landowners to locate squatters. Claiming adverse possession can be done but it is difficult and paying the property taxes on the contested property in itself doesn't mean a thing. There has to be other criteria in play to claim AP.

OP - were you able to contact your neighbor and work this out?
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Neighbor is an attorney owns three large ranch's said with the cost alone in Texas makes it almost impossible to get an attorney to take an adverse possession claim.
Landowners rights with a deed and survey trump everything else.
 

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