QUESTION

WE bought our house 5 yrs ago The house had an existing privacy fence when we bought it Is there a limitations when it was put on neighbors property?

Asked on Apr 25th, 2017 on Litigation - Indiana
More details to this question:
I'm guessing the privacy fence has been up for 10 years & a verbal ok was given by the neighbor with former owners. Is there a statue of limitations that we would not have to move our fence since we obviously are having trouble with this neighbor?
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1 ANSWER

Appellate Practice Attorney serving New York, NY
Yes and no.  There is a legal concept called adverse possession, which means that if you openly exercise control over someone else's real property without their permission for a period of time (the period varies between jurisdictions but is generally approximately 10 years; I don't know what it is in Indiana), you gain the right to continue to use the property as you had been, up to and including full ownership.  However, here you had the owner's permission to use the property, whcih they could revoke.  Any claim that you might make that they had agreed to allow the prior owner of your property to use the property in perpetuity is likely to fail, because such a contract is unenforceable unless it is in writing.
Answered on Apr 25th, 2017 at 10:46 AM

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