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Things can get pretty heated when someone starts working on a new construction project…

And their neighbor isn’t happy about it.

But we see stories like this all the time!

So it seems like the best course of action is usually to play nice, consult with your neighbor, and make sure that everything is on the up-and-up before your start breaking ground…

Just in case…or else something like this might happen.

Take a look!

AITA for interrupting my neighbor’s construction plans after they already started?

“We bought a house and moved last year.

What we really loved about it was the natural beauty and sense of privacy the woods surrounding the house.

Prior to selling, the previous owners had subdivided the ten acres into two lots, the larger of which we purchased, and the smaller, undeveloped, sloped and heavily wooded lot was purchased by the people who I will call “New Neighbors” or NN for short, or the purpose of building their second home. It was really a very less-than-ideal choice of location to build a house, but they’re doing it.

About a year after we moved in, the NN began deforesting their lot in order to begin construction.

Hmmm…

They took out EVERYTHING– all the underbrush and probably 95% of the trees, some of which were hundreds of years old, judging by the rings in the felled trunks, including any trees that were growing on the property line without discussion.

Without the vegetation to block it, the wind coming up over the hill has been horrific, making it feel much colder and causing several of the very old, very tall trees in our yard to topple over. Thankfully they haven’t caused any damage to any of our structures; just a lot of clean up for me to do in the spring.

I began researching what I could plant in the spring along the driveway to break the wind and restore a sense of privacy. I couldn’t make any concrete plans until I knew what was happening in the easement area.

When construction began, we contacted the neighbors to see about accessing their site plans, as we were not looped into the planning process.

Okay…

They ignored us, hired a lawyer, and refused to communicate with us further after I had to call the cops to get them to move construction vehicles that were blocking the driveway and preventing me from leaving my house.

My husband had to file a right-to-know request with our township, who were taking their time in getting back to us. (Quite possibly, the site plans were not yet approved at the time?) During this time they put down a loop of sorts of a gravel pathway, which we presumed was for moving the construction vehicles around the site, and would be removed after they finished.

We made contact with the construction manager (CM). He would offer us inconvenient times during which we could meet with him to go over the site plans (weekdays in the middle of the morning, for example, when my husband was away at work,) but we managed to schedule the meeting for 2.5 weeks in the future, after several days of emailing back and forth…

Well, two days before the scheduled meeting, a massive winter storm hit our area, covering the land in a ice-crusted, knee deep snow. The CM emailed us to reschedule for February 10, as they would not be on site due to the weather, but attached a copy of the site plans that the NN authorized him to send.

Finally!

This looked suspicious…

I looked at them and immediately noticed that they planned to have their driveway cross the easement area twice, where they had put down the gravel. The connection points to our existing gravel driveway, which is about 10 feet in width, look to be 2-3 times as wide as it in the diagram (which would make them 20-30 ft wide.).

This would take up a significant portion of the easement area, and prevent me from planting anything there. I immediately emailed the CM and the NN’s lawyer to dissent to both super-wide connection points, calling it an unreasonable use of our property.

I asked them to change the site plans to only crossing our easement area once, as it appears one crossing would give them sufficient access to and maneuverability around their property. The NN’s lawyer responded a day later with a blunt refusal.

The easement agreement, poorly written up by the previous owners of the property, doesn’t specify how many ingress/egress points they can create, nor the scope of them.

It was written to vaguely say that they should have “reasonable access” to their lot through use of the easement.

It specifies that if any lot owner should find work on the easement to be “unreasonable,” and cannot come to an agreement, then a third party-lawyer shall be selected, within a “reasonable timeframe,” to settle the dispute, and the lot owners will split the cost.

The NN’s lawyer so far has said that the two crossing/access points are “not unreasonable,” that the agreement doesn’t limit them to one, that the township has already approved their plans, and they have already begun construction.

Let’s run down the list of why they’re mad about this…

My argument is that A) at no point in time were we included in the planning process of how the easement area would be used, B) they stalled giving us the plans until after construction began, such that we could not express dissent earlier in the process.

C) one access point would allow them “reasonable access” to their lot, as the original agreement appears to intend to provide.

D) it seems to me that anywhere I presume they would park their vehicles, they would need to reverse out of anyway, so a crescent-shaped driveway is not inherently necessary for getting them in and out (plus, we don’t have a crescent shaped driveway, and we still manage to turn our cars around every day. Why can’t they?)

E) as the servient property, two access points would place undue burden on us and limit my ability to use the land as I intend, such that I can quietly enjoy my property without being blasted by wind.

F) if they needed a crescent-shaped driveway for maneuverability, they should have planned to build it within their own property, as it seems like they have the space for it.

G) it would not incur additional costs to construct less area of driveway, except for the cost of removing the existing gravel for say, the connection point I have marked “1”. To me, it seems like they want to build this driveway for the purpose of convenience at the expense of using more land that belongs to us, abusing the easement agreement.

Now, I am no construction engineer or expert on grading and storm water management, or anything like that. So it’s entirely possible that building the crescent within their property isn’t feasible. It’s possible that the drawings of their planned driveway system aren’t to scale and they really wouldn’t have functional maneuverability.

I certainly willing to hear them out if they want to make an argument for the necessity of two access points, which they so far have not done. I’m sure it would cost them to have the CM draw up other driveway configurations and determine the necessary changes required to build them.

Perhaps they are planning on replanting their lot such that the wind wouldn’t be so bad, as they are supposed to according to local regulations (however, I suspect it would take years for the new trees to reach a wind-blocking size, and I suspect they will put grass down instead of underbrush. Hence my inclination plant dense and variable vegetation along the driveway.)

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They would need to submit any changes made to the township for approval, which would stall construction progress.

They were under no obligation to request permission for two access points during the planning process (though it doesn’t seem smart to just go full steam ahead on it without talking to us at all, does it?)

Perhaps if I was in their shoes, I would feel entitled to two access points myself… Or maybe I wouldn’t have planned to use that much of the neighbor’s property in the first place, given that it’s not mine.

I don’t know.

AITA?”

Check out what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This reader had a lot to say.

Another individual weighed in.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who refused to let her neighbor have access to his spot, telling him to drive over the curb instead.

And this person spoke up.

Well, this sure doesn’t sound good.

These folks need to sit down and work this out, right?

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen!

It sounds like this battle between neighbors is just getting started…

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Author

Matthew Gilligan