Property lines become a big deal when you’re a homeowner.

Read how one Redditor stands their ground when a neighbor is literally trying to claim the very property that they own.

It gets pretty heated, let me tell you!

AITA for asking for my property back?

Some background: My neighbor and our backyard corner is the low spot in the neighborhood.

The lowest spot is on our property, 5 feet from property line.

During some heavy downpours last year, we had knee-deep water in that spot.

We’ve been very friendly with our neighbors over the years.

To give them credit, they tried to get the drain that connects backyard to front yard cleared, but were unsuccessful.

There’s a drainage easement between the properties.

It sounds like the two sets of neighbors have to work together on a few things already.

Now the main event: A month or so ago, they had a landscaping person plant some Evergreens and place a brick wall between the properties (20′ length X 3′ tall).

We were not thrilled.

They did all this without getting a survey or even consulting with us.

We informed the neighbors that we’re paying for a survey to figure out the property lines.

The survey showed that their new wall was 1.5 feet into our property.

We went to discuss the options with the neighbor, only to find him indignant at our audacity to get a survey and stirring up dirt.

We asked them to correct the problem with a flexible timeline.

Since then, they’ve been very hostile, but not violent or loud.

They think that it is petty of us to ask them to move the wall.

One-and-a-half feet is a lot in terms of property!

Now the side-story: the survey also showed that a lot of their older landscaping along the rest of the property line was also over by more than a foot to several feet.

All of their half of the drainage easement is covered up by this landscaping, so the only usable easement on our property. Even part of that is covered by this landscaping.

Still, we’ve only asked them to correct this to the property line.

We asked them to remove the most egregious ones first, so we could have equipment access to get the drain work going.

We were ready to offer flexibility and our time and labor to help with removal as well.

It was met with the same response.

Wow, it sounds like they got the easy end of the situation.

We were aware of adverse possession possibility.

But that needs legal fees so nobody wanted that option.

The two conversations with them have been with us trying to resolve with discussion and options.

We are aware of the cost and wanted to work with them in correcting this while standing firm that we were not letting them have our property.

So what do they say to that?

Their rebuttal has ranged from calling us petty for wanting a foot and half…to “this has never been a problem until now”…to bigoted comments about us being immigrants.

I also feel that he’s hurt by the fact that a female is “ordering” him.

And have they ever apologized?

Never once have they admitted to any mistakes they made. Through all this we’ve not engaged in any irrelevant points out of respect to them and tried to deescalate the conversations.

AITA for insisting that they remove their landscaping from my property?

Does Reddit think this is nit-picky?

Let’s see what the comments have to say.

People said “NTA” but also noted that the neighbors should’ve ordered this survey first.

Readers also mentioned that legal may need to get involved.

And ultimately, their true colors have come to light.

Moral of the story is: don’t guess and build!

It always pays to get a survey before you build anything.

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