For many people, neighbors can become great friends which really adds a lot to the joy of living in a neighborhood.

What would you do if you found out that your neighbors intentionally built a fence on your property and were now trying to pressure you into selling them that land?

That is what the homeowners in this story experienced, and they are not giving in even though the neighbor is talking badly about them.

Check it out.

AITA for refusing to sell a sliver of my property to the neighbors after they built on it?

I bought my house/property in 2014.

My neighbors have been living next door since 2012.

Along with those neighbors, I also share a property line with another set of neighbors whose backyard meets with my backyard.

We ended up having a disagreement with backyard neighbor over who was responsible for some trees close to the property line, so I had a property survey done because neither of us had one.

So the survey was completed, backyard neighbor still hates me 3 years later, but that’s not where my inquiry stems from.

The survey revealed that the OTHER neighbors, with whom we share a side yard line, planted landscaping and built a fence about 6 feet into my yard.

I suspected this was the case when they did it, but I didn’t want to confront them because I didn’t have a survey to prove anything.

This is important as you need to maintain control of the property.

After the survey, I did inform them that their fence and landscaping were on my side.

They weren’t happy and insisted that my survey was wrong and that the multiple people who lived here before me always used an old hedgerow (that was long gone when I came) as the divider.

I told them I don’t know anything about that, but the results of my legal property survey are right here.

They became confrontational and told me they were going to call their lawyer, and I hadn’t even made any kind of request at that point.

Fast forward about a month, they asked if they could buy the sliver of property that their fence was built on.

Within this time, I found out that they had actually had their own property survey done a year after they moved in.

Yeah, they are being dishonest.

This irritated me because they knew all along where the line was (legally), but they decided to build over it anyway based on what someone had apparently told them about some hedgerow.

So I said I didn’t want to sell any of the property, partially because of that and partially because the fence they built is only about 3 feet from my shed, which is too close based on zoning laws where I live.

I was also upset that instead of making this request from the start, they threatened me with calling their lawyer.

They’re middle-aged people, and I bought my house when I was 21, so to me, it feels like they thought they could take advantage of a younger couple and do whatever they wanted.

They did move the landscaping, but the fence still stands where is has been.

This seems like a more than reasonable accommodation.

I had suggested drawing up an agreement that allows them to use the property for the fence, but if they ever move, I’d like the fence taken down to prevent problems with future owners.

They didn’t like that and told me in a fit that they’d just move the fence back onto their own property.

Now they’ve been avoiding talking to me about it for 3 years.

But I guess it’s whatever.

I’m not a confrontational person.

That would bother me as well.

It does bother me because I know they’ve been talking to other neighbors and people in town and telling them my husband and I are jerks for not just selling them the property and expecting them to move their fence, even though I’ve never actually said that.

AITA?

This property owner did nothing wrong and actually tried to accommodate the neighbor.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say.

This person says the neighbors are trying to take over the property.

This could be a time-sensitive matter.

Here is someone who says to lawyer up.

This commenter suggests demanding they move the fence immediately.

This person says the neighbors are entitled bullies.

They need to take legal action immediately.

Waiting too long could end up working in the neighbor’s favor.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.