The saga of the neighbor's shed, cont.

My last blog entry on the problem with our neighbor's shed, the one that was sitting on our property, ended with his immortal words "I'll see you in court." We didn't do anything for a couple of days, because--quite frankly--we were hoping that once he got over the shock of our intention to move the fence, he would realize that we were being fair about the situation and come to his senses.

Well, that didn't happen.

So Jonathan started making some phone calls to various city offices and Kentucky Utilities. We were hoping the electric company would enforce moving the shed, as it was also on top of the utility easement. No luck there; turns out they only care about easement violations if they interfere with access to the power lines. Shucks.

As for the Fayette County Urban Government offices, they mostly told us to call some other department, but after a total of nine phone calls, Jonathan realized they were all saying the same thing: This was a civil matter, and we would have to file suit.

So then Jonathan called the previous owners of our house to see if they knew of any relevant history. Turns out that they have tangled with this neighbor over the property lines before. Same ol' story: they did a survey, realized the property line went 46 inches back, and the shed was in the way. So they asked the neighbor nicely to move the shed, and he refused, just like this time. But the previous owners let the matter drop, which may be why the neighbor figures he can stonewall us this time, too. Apparently the neighbor ALSO ripped the survey stakes out and threw them away the last time this happened. So far, he hasn't touched the new stakes we had put in with our recent survey... but Jon and I poked around and took lots of photographs showing them (and the shed) just in case.

So.... it doesn't look like this neighbor is going to be reasonable, darn it. So we called our lawyer, who recommended that we start off by writing a polite letter and informing the neighbor that we will indeed file suit if he does not let us move his shed off our property. Our lawyer also said that if we had to go to court, it's not clear that we would be awarded legal fees. Jon and I are both pretty stubborn, though, especially when we know we're in the right.