The dam on my pond is eroding and I need to put some rip rap stone on it to halt it. My entire farm is fenced in, and the fence runs so close to the pond down the levee that I can barely drive a small ATV down it much less a tractor or heavy equipment. and yet I own at least 60 feet of property on the other side of my fence which would allow plenty of room. As a solution I decided I would move the fence over to allow more room to get the heavy equipment down the narrow levee to repair it. The problem is that one of my neighbors claims he has an easement outside my fence running all the way down the levee. This allows him more width on my property than I have, he has in essence 60 feet of access and I barely have eight feet located on my own property.
The man who sold me my property told me that there was no easement when I bought it. And when I initially spoke with the surveyor he said he couldn’t find an easement, so I decided just to move my fence over about ten feet which would allow me to get a machine in to distribute the rip rap whether he liked it or not. I hired a surveyor to ensure exactly where my line was before beginning the job. Just as they completed surveying, my neighbor mysteriously appears and he quickly conferred with the surveyor whom he knew. His little meeting informed him of I what was doing on this project, and he came over to me and told me he had an easement. I told him what the former owner and the surveyor had told me, and he said he would look it up.
I was very angry at the surveyor for calling him as I felt that the job was between him and me and I was the one paying him, and it was unethical and unprofessional to do what he did. I was angry at my neighbor because I didn’t really believe he had an easement in the first place and especially disliked being told what I can and cannot do on my own property. It was not lost on me that this neighbor had experienced run-ins with many different people I knew and had a bad reputation. When I moved there, I was warned about him, but I decided that he hadn’t done anything to me, and I wanted to try and have a good relationship with everyone. Up to this point he had been very nice, and I considered him to be a friend.
So, I angrily called the surveyor and told him what I thought of the situation. I then spoke with my neighbor and told him that was my property, and I was moving my fence and he would have full access to the property outside my fence. I had decided that I would to go the mat for years in court if he wanted a fight.
The surveyor called me back and told me he had researched it and indeed there was an easement recorded and it was where my neighbor said it was. He sent a crew out and marked its exact location so I could see for myself. By now I was livid and felt like burning the surveyor’s and my neighbor’s houses down with them in it and decided I would get the best attorney in the entire state and break the stranglehold this guy had on me. I knew I could outlast him in an expensive trial with appeals or whatever, and I was determined not to take any prisonors and didn’t care.
That was Satan doing my thinking and my flesh doing the talking. I felt the Holy Spirit taking me by the nape of my neck to the woodshed and telling me that I was wrong, and my neighbor was right. I immediately felt ashamed and quickly decided to take the high road.
I called my neighbor and apologized and told him that he was right and that I had checked and indeed there was an easement recorded right where he said it would be. Apparently the man who sold me my property was mistaken or had said what I wanted to hear, and as it unfolded the surveyor had not researched it adequately at the time that we had spoken, and he told me there wasn’t one either. The neighbor was very conciliatory and told me he would work with me any way he could.
I have decided to widen my levee on the inside of my existing fence with dirt and rip rap rock to widen it to ensure there is no more erosion. It will be expensive, but so would a lawsuit not to mention hard feelings forever with a neighbor and vice versa. I can get the dirt from the fields on the other end of the pond and thereby enlarge and deepen my pond significantly as a side benefit. When it has been completed I will have plenty of room to drive my tractor or lawnmower down my widened levee, I will have a larger pond, and my neighbor won’t be angry at me for life. In essence the problem will be resolved without bitterness and anger, and I will be far happier as well as my neighbor.
I like the solution that God helped me craft. My logic comes directly out of His holy word the Bible. Satan and my flesh lost this battle and the Holy Spirit prevailed. I was never a fan of turning the other cheek and cannot envision ever doing so, but God knows how to amicably resolve disputes and what we may not “envision” seems ludicrous after we have given it a try. An amicable solution is always there if we will only look for it. The Hatfields and McCoys should listen carefully and solve their stupid dispute and move on with life.
Eph 4:22
. . . with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man who has been created in God’s image—in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.