# Good Fences Make For Good Neighbors......Or Do They?



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Property rights perspective from DTN.

Regards, Mike

http://www.dtnprogressivefarmer.com/dtnag/common/link.do?symbolicName=/free/landmanagement/news/template1&product=/ag/news/landmanagement&vendorReference=0702DDC5&paneContentId=70119&paneParentId=70104&pagination_num=1


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

My personal feeling has always been that good fences make good neighbors, unless somebody gets a wild hair and says the fence is in the wrong place. The trend around here for years has been to tear out the barb wire fences that used to separate farms. I would rather keep the fence, but I am also a person that enjoys building and repairing fences.


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## BPatrick (Aug 30, 2013)

Currently going through a bad situation with a farm I'm renting and intend to buy, and hateful people "across" the fence.....would never address them as neighbors.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

When the farm sold next to mine a couple of years ago a survey was done. One hadn't been done in probably 100 years since both were homesteaded farms owned by the same families. The fence line that had been there for about 75 years or more was about 30-40 feet off in some place in our favor. But then in other non farmable places about 10 feet off in the other guys favor. However the neighbor is a good guy and has turned a 30 year weed patch back into a good farm. We won't be removing the fence as there is no need to and he pastures cows in the winter. If someone says the fence is in the wrong place tell em to get a survey or two to prove it.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

I'll never forget fencing in our property with my dad about 35-40 years ago. We used barbed wire and it kept a lot of riff-raff away.
One day I was bow hunting well within the confines of our property in my tree stand.
I hear all this commotion and here comes this big dumb ass bucket neighbor of ours in his big yellow rubber boots, Rolex watch and his property blue prints. I yell down to him, "you just ruined my day of bow hunting". He yells back up to me "you're on my property". Now keep in mind, I'm 300' inside of our barbed wire. Not even close to his property.
I climb down, take my gear off and tell him to get the F off our property. He promises he'll be back with a lawyer. I was young at the time and probably could have sent him home with one of his rubber boots pulled down over his head. Instead, I let my old man know what had happened. He called the guy and warned him if he ever sets foot on our property again, he will be arrested for trespassing. Man there's a guy who's ass I really wanted to put a beating on.... Just a pompous, arrogant, city asshole.
Never heard a word from him again. The idiot moved a few years later and I hear he's starting shit with his new neighbors.
Strong fences do build good neighbors. They serve as a reminder "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is yours". We are human and we make mistakes. Strong fences are great reminders.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I've found in my real estate career that the guy arguing about property lines is very rarely willing to spend the money on a survey to prove he is right. I had one client that bought 80 acres and it had a survey done so they knew where the lines were. Open praire. The neighbor guy insisted the survey was wrong by 100 feet all along one side, but never wanted to spend the $2000 to get another survey to make sure he was right. My client just ignored him.


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## snowball (Feb 7, 2015)

i'am just going to say I agree Good fences do make good neighbors .. 40 yrs worth of livestock I could easily write a book on the things I've been though with fences and neighbors and it sure would not be a romance novel either the only love connection in that book would be the amount of times I told a neighbor to kiss my @ss


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Man! Ya gotta LOVE stone walls! They were generally there first, and they don't move around or disappear much either!


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

snowball said:


> i'am just going to say I agree Good fences do make good neighbors .. 40 yrs worth of livestock I could easily write a book on the things I've been though with fences and neighbors and it sure would not be a romance novel either the only love connection in that book would be the amount of times I told a neighbor to kiss my @ss


I don't know if you'd want to tell the neighbor with the wandering bull issue with you to kiss your ass. He might actually take you up on it. Lol


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Back in the early 70's, my grandmother's sister and her husband (who was an idiot and an A-hole) DEMANDED that they pay half of a survey to divide the farm... Originally this farm was 175 acres; it was divided in the early 50's when Grandpa B passed away; half to grandma's sister and half to Grandma. In the late 50's, the state highway department shaved 14 feet off the front of all the farms on both sides of the road around here to make the old one-lane dirt road into a Farm-to-Market (state road, basically) divided two-lane paved road. Since we have the half fronting the highway, we lost 14 feet across the front and a whole row of OLD pecan trees that Grandpa B had planted in the early 1900's... [email protected] fool idgits on the back half (grandma's sister and her idiot husband) were CONVINCED that *they* should get ANOTHER 7 feet of land on our side of the fence... Too [email protected] stupid to figure out that if 14 feet comes off the front and you divide what's left 50% like the deed stated, that means the fence will move BACK onto their property by 7 feet, NOT FORWARD ONTO OURS.

Nevertheless, and despite not having the money (had to borrow it) to pay for the survey, Grandpa and Grandma paid their half, and it was surveyed... guess what... The dividing line WAS moved back by 7 feet, just as we thought... Really p!ssed them off, too... A-hole fenced his half on the proper line, since he got out of row crops and put it all in bahia and started running a few cows (until someone stole a calf a couple years later, and then he plowed it all back up and rented it out for crops again!) The south 2/3 of the fenceline was on the "new boundary" and was left as-is... the northern 1/3 was the "old fenceline" and Grandpa didn't see moving it over 7 feet, so he just left it as it was...

Fast forward 40 years... the fences were dilapidated and some McCartney rose had overtaken part of it, lots of trees and brush and a huge mess, and cattle were getting out, so we sold off the few head we had here on the 14 acres of pasture (rest was in row crops) and we hired a guy to bulldoze the fence. Burned off the brush piles, rolled up the barbwire and junk to haul for scrap steel, and buried whatever was left. Baled hay on it for a few years while we kept row cropping...

Then with crop prices in the dumper, input prices through the roof, and cattle prices good, we decided to use the "last farm program payments" under Freedom to Farm to fence the place off and just drop row cropping and go all cattle. Of course the minute the A-hole cousins across the old fenceline heard, all h3ll broke loose... (by this time Grandma's sister and BIL were dead, but their daughter is as big an idiot as they were, as were her nutjob husband and their kids and grandkids, for that matter...)

They demanded a survey to "ensure that the fenceline wasn't on their property". I got to digging in the papers at Grandma's, and under some old cotton gin tickets from the 70's and ration stamp books from World War II, I found the old survey done in the early 70's, paid for with borrowed money because Grandma and Grandpa couldn't afford their half at the time.

Contacted the survey company, who was still in business, and they looked it over, and looked in their records, and found that they had installed steel markers deep in the ground when they did the original survey... stated that they could come out and re-mark the lines for only $450, instead of re-doing the entire survey-- the original survey was still considered legally binding and valid... So we paid them and out they came...

Imagine the surprise when the marker flags went up across the entire north 1/3 of the farm on their tenant's turn rows at the end of the cotton field, right up to where he had planted. I talked with him and agreed not to do any fencing until the crop was off, but after that, up it went and he'd have to move his turnrows and bar ditches accordingly. He understood and that was that.

Cousins were sure p!ssed though when I put up five strand barb wire across their turnrows, which aligned perfectly with the fenceline Grandma's BIL put up in the mid-70's, which had been overgrown and we had bulldozed out as well... We paid for all the new fences ourselves, even though I COULD have gone after them for half the costs...

I figured getting that strip of land we'd been entitled to all those years was enough salt in the wound... no sense looking for trouble. And just to make SURE there was no complaints, I actually put the fence a foot inside the marker flags, so they couldn't complain... Figure the cows'll eat under the fence enough to make up for it anyway...

Karma can be a real b!tch, can't it?? Serves the SOB's right!

later! OL JR


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Thanks for reminding me how good my neighbors are. Neighbor north and I measured. And measured. And again. Then said this is it.

I should survey my hay ground though... pretty sure I have some corn on my land. I don't grow corn.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

deadmoose said:


> Thanks for reminding me how good my neighbors are. Neighbor north and I measured. And measured. And again. Then said this is it.
> 
> I should survey my hay ground though... pretty sure I have some corn on my land. I don't grow corn.


It helps to have good neighbors... we don't. Thank goodness we front roads on the other three sides of the place! LOL Course I look out awhile back and see a horse in my brother's yard back by the fence into the pasture... turns out some idgit bought part of the place across the highway and is slowly turning it into some sort of horse playground, and one of em got out and made his way across the highway and up the county road and into my brother's yard... go figure... dunno how that happened because the numb nut just bought the place and fenced it last year... must've left the gate open or something... don't need no [email protected] nags over here though!

Have you owned that hay ground a long time?? If you've ever had it surveyed and know the survey company, odds are it's in their records, and they can probably look it up and come mark it for you relatively cheap-- far cheaper than a new survey...

Later! OL JR


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

Teslan said:


> I've found in my real estate career that the guy arguing about property lines is very rarely willing to spend the money on a survey to prove he is right. I had one client that bought 80 acres and it had a survey done so they knew where the lines were. Open praire. The neighbor guy insisted the survey was wrong by 100 feet all along one side, but never wanted to spend the $2000 to get another survey to make sure he was right. My client just ignored him.


That depends on state law to a great extent. I bought 44 acres of hardwood in Northern Michigan for hunting. I have 2 neighbors on 3 sides and I get along with both, in fact, I keep my camper on one of the neighbors property (to avoid vandalism that occurs with unattended campers on remote land....we all know how people are...lol

Anyway, here in Michigan, if you claim property lines and the adjacent owne don't contest it, it 15 years you assume ownership. First thing I did was have a registered survey done and found out the one neighbor was encroaching on my property almost 45 feet along one side. I had the property lath staked every 100 feet along the borders with monuments placed in each corner with no trepassing signs every lath stake on a metal post. Wasn't cheap by any means but it limits my liability if anyone trespasses (I have state game land on one side). Not being there to police it, presents a liability.

The enroaching neighbor apologized, said he didn't know. I said it was no issue really and it wasn;t, however, I'm paying taxes on the ground and it's mine. I have no issue with him hunting it nor my other neighbor. I wanted to set the parameters and limit my liability should anyone get injured on the property.


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## valleyfarmsupply (Mar 14, 2015)

Keeping the peace here


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## CDennyRun (Nov 26, 2015)

I went through a bit of a struggle with my neighbor as well. When we first moved in, I asked if we could use his fence to keep our horses in, under the agreement that I would replace and repair any bad areas, and would keep the fence line clear. He was more than happy about it, and thanked me for being willing to do the work, and pay for everything. The whole fence line was overgrown with blackberries, shrubs, and trees. I cleared out the firs 150' and realized all the t-posts with barbed wire were rotten, and needed to go. I told him about it, and we both agree to place the fence exactly where it was.

Well I put up 150' of new fencing, and all of a sudden he comes over deeply concerned about property lines, and wanted a survey. He said he'll pay for it, and I agreed. next day he says "Um.. the survey is $3000 and I'm not paying for it" He tried doing his own survey with a hand held GPS unit, and said he owned 20' of the whole length of my property! Keep in mind this guy is a chemical engineer from Seattle, and has no place wasting the perfectly good five acres he has. Anyway, we ended up finding the old markers, and it turns out the fence was 2' on his property. I ended up pulling up the fence I put up, and moved it 2' on my property to make him happy, and have scrapped the idea of working with him. He was so frustrated that he didn't own that 20' of my land.

Now him and I don't speak much. He doesn't wave back at me when I drive by. I'm never going to clear the berry bushes on his side, not going to share a fence with him if he gets animals. He can build his own dang fence.

Chris


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

Chris, do y'all EACH have to build a fence right next to each other's if no agreement is reached and each wants to run critters on their own side?

Without looking up the law, I think the "right hand" rule still applies here. Meet your neighbor in the middle of y'all's property line and each are responsible for building the fence to THEIR right. If the neighbor doesn't run critters against the fence, then it's all yours. If he decides later ('cause what-the-heck, the fence is already there), he can be made to pay for his 1/2 if he runs his critters against your fence...therefore making it y'all's fence.

Also a word of encouragement...if you WANT him to wave back...use ALL of YOUR fingers when you wave first. 

73, Mark


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## CDennyRun (Nov 26, 2015)

glasswrongsize said:


> Chris, do y'all EACH have to build a fence right next to each other's if no agreement is reached and each wants to run critters on their own side?
> 
> Without looking up the law, I think the "right hand" rule still applies here. Meet your neighbor in the middle of y'all's property line and each are responsible for building the fence to THEIR right. If the neighbor doesn't run critters against the fence, then it's all yours. If he decides later ('cause what-the-heck, the fence is already there), he can be made to pay for his 1/2 if he runs his critters against your fence...therefore making it y'all's fence.
> 
> ...


Ha ha ha! I'm a pretty nice guy, and have a hard time being a prick. The way he's acted about this whole thing, I don't want him using my fence. If he uses it and pays for half, I suppose.. sure. I would love to see that city boy build his own though, and clear the berry bushes by himself. It's not very Christian of me, but I want to see him earn a good clean fence line. I think we're just going to build our fence on our side of the blackberry mess, and keep some privacy between us. He's the type to call the fire department if I burn a brush pile bigger than 4x4x3H. Honestly he can shove it!

Chris


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

I like just building your own fence that is what i done and I don't have to share with no one and the 2 foot i set it off the line didn't bother me i just don't want to see him tying into it. Because then i would not be a good neighbor.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

CDennyRun said:


> I went through a bit of a struggle with my neighbor as well. When we first moved in, I asked if we could use his fence to keep our horses in, under the agreement that I would replace and repair any bad areas, and would keep the fence line clear. He was more than happy about it, and thanked me for being willing to do the work, and pay for everything. The whole fence line was overgrown with blackberries, shrubs, and trees. I cleared out the firs 150' and realized all the t-posts with barbed wire were rotten, and needed to go. I told him about it, and we both agree to place the fence exactly where it was.
> 
> Well I put up 150' of new fencing, and all of a sudden he comes over deeply concerned about property lines, and wanted a survey. He said he'll pay for it, and I agreed. next day he says "Um.. the survey is $3000 and I'm not paying for it" He tried doing his own survey with a hand held GPS unit, and said he owned 20' of the whole length of my property! Keep in mind this guy is a chemical engineer from Seattle, and has no place wasting the perfectly good five acres he has. Anyway, we ended up finding the old markers, and it turns out the fence was 2' on his property. I ended up pulling up the fence I put up, and moved it 2' on my property to make him happy, and have scrapped the idea of working with him. He was so frustrated that he didn't own that 20' of my land.
> 
> ...


That's a really sad story, but it doesn't surprise me. Lots of people out there like that. One of my neighbors is like that. He's a real shady city boy. Makes his money taking other people's life long ideas and "marketing" them for a nice big cut of the profit. What a guy. Amazing what bleached teeth and smart glasses can do for a person these days....
Anyhow, this little needle neck female reproductive part enlarged and reconfigured his driveway and sloped it so all the water runoff goes into my side yard. Now every time it rains, I have a 40' X 2" deep pond in my side yard.
Of course he didn't slope it towards HIS property.......noooooo can't do that. Shove the water onto the neighbors property. Now what do I do?


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

JD, Time to construct a levee down your side of the property line!


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Just be sure to make it higher than the surface of his driveway!


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

A "silt barrier" constructed of idiot cubes of mulch with grade stakes driven through them comes to mind!


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

Go tell him to fix it or you are going to pound his face in.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Swv.farmer said:


> Go tell him to fix it or you are going to pound his face in.


Oh I don't need to do that.....my wife can do that perfectly fine.


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