Legal Question in Real Estate Law in North Carolina
LONG Running Boundary Dispute
My husband died in late 1999, and a few months later a neighbor filed a property line dispute against me, saying we built our house partly on his property. This neighbor doesn't live on this property, he bought it 19 years after we bought ours(already built). This neighbor is well known for frivolous lawsuits. Six years later, the lawsuit is ongoing, and I have yet to step inside a courtroom. I was diagnosed with a serious disease, had to move back to my hometown, and file for disability, and quit my job. I can only rent my home, I can't sell it. I've lost everything else waiting for this to be settled. We did everything right when we bought, went through a broker, got title insurance, in 1989. This man moved to the neighborhood in 1994, and purchased this very thin lot beside us in 1998.
I desperatley need to sell my house, but I can't. I live in public housing and barely get by, I can't buy my medicine or see doctors. And I have almost $100,000 house I can't sell. Is it normal for a property dispute to last this long? I'm so angry, I want to sue somebody, but i don't know who's responsible. I just want to get on with what's left of my life. This man only wants my property because his is unusable without it.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: LONG Running Boundary Dispute
If you did everything right, then hopefully you had a survey done when you purchased the property and your title insurance would defend this lawsuit (if the survey showed that the house wasn't built on your neighbors property). If you didn't have a survey done, you may not be covered by your title insurance company. Either way, you need an attorney and hopefully you already have one.
Re: LONG Running Boundary Dispute
Presumably, you have a lawyer for this lawsuit. You need to address these issues to him/her. If you do not have a lawyer, you need to get one to handle this. An existing lawsuit is not one to handle via a form like this.