New home came with fence on neighbor’s land. Who pays to move it?
Q: We bought our home a year ago with a fenced in yard. Recently, our neighbor demanded that we remove the fence from his property stating it is two feet over the line. I looked at our closing papers and saw that our survey does show our fence is on his property. The fence company, the seller, and our title company are telling us they will not help. We bought the house this way, and it does not feel right for us to have to pay to have the fence moved. Do we?
—Stan
A: Yes, you will have to pay to have the fence moved because you became responsible for it when you became the owner. When you entered into the contract to purchase the property, you and the seller agreed to a bundle of rights and responsibilities. The very situation you are now dealing with now was addressed in your contract and is part of the reason that you had the home surveyed during the closing process.
The typical contract lets you notify the seller if there is an issue, such as yours, and would require the seller to fix the problem before closing. However, if you failed to notify the seller and went to closing, you waive this requirement. It becomes your problem, not the seller’s. The fence company installed the fence with the approval of the seller, so they are not responsible, and this would be excluded from your title insurance policy because it is plainly showing on the survey. While I don’t think you did it intentionally, you accepted this problem and will now need to move the fence.
While the typical real estate contract seems like a simple fillin-the-blank form, it has been crafted over the years to address almost every issue that arises during the process. There are numerous rights and responsibilities in those pages, and they should be carefully read. If, after reading them, you still don’t fully understand what the contract requires, you should find a professional to help you through the process to make sure that a seemingly unimportant issue, such as this one, doesn’t cause significant problems later.