Neighbor's landscaping and fence are on my property will not cause adverse possession

That property will never become your neighbor's property because adverse possession requires that the other party pay the property taxes on that portion of the property.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Jim, you're on News 96.5. Go ahead.

Jim: Thanks for taking my call. I have a neighbor that decided to landscape about three feet onto my property, unaware of where the property line was. Do I need to be concerned about that when I, either go to sell or he goes to sell?

Attorney Tom Olsen: Is it a flower bed or is it hardscaping, like a fence or a wall?

Jim: No, it's stones and landscaping blocks.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Okay. The bottom line, Jim, is I don't appreciate your neighbor doing that without looking at a survey first, but at the end of the day, it's not going to hurt you, necessarily. This is why. People are always concerned, well, my neighbor put his fence on my property, or, a stone wall on my property. Will my property become my neighbors property someday? The answer is no.

For adverse possession, here in the state of Florida, he would have to be paying your real estate taxes on that three feet of property, Jim. That's never going to happen. That property will never be his. Jim, what this may be creating an issue is this, is that when you go to sell your house and your new buyer gets a survey and sees that your neighbor's wall is on your property, hey, it may be an issue for your buyer.

Jim, here's how I usually resolve that. I usually resolve it by doing an agreement that's signed by you and your neighbor, where your neighbor acknowledges that this wall, and this landscaping, is on your property. You both agree that you're going to leave it as is, no problem, but if you ever want to remove it, your neighbor's giving you the permission to remove it. That's going to give your new buyer a comfort level down the road. Jim, does that make sense?

Jim: It does. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Attorney Tom Olsen: You're welcome. If you want some help with that agreement, you let me know. As it happens, I built a stone wall. I paid somebody to build a stone wall and went over my neighbor's property a little bit. We didn't mean to but we did and my neighbor and I, we signed that same agreement. By the way, when you get that agreement done, you record it in the public record, so it doesn't get lost and is picked up by all future owners of these two pieces of property.