Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Texas

Real Estate - Texas

Hello,

I believe I have an interesting situation. I purchased with a partner, a tract of land several months ago. The closing went fine and nothing out of the ordinary has occured, until now. I was on the property appraiser's website reviewing some information on the tract of land and happened to notice several neighboring homes whose houses extended beyond their property boundaries in and onto our tract. I'm going home tonight to review the legal description/survey, but wanted to ask, if indeed these property owner's houses/yards/gates extended in and onto our property and we were to contact them about remedying this....could they have grounds for adverse possesion? I'm vaguely familiar with adverse possesion, but believe that there are several items which are required (i.e. 25 years of open/notorious use?)...I guess I would like to know (in particular) if one of the homes, whose house is built onto the property, was constructed 9 years ago, would they have a claim to my land? Would erecting a permissive use sign or recording a permissive use document for either property owner, ''circumvent'' the need for a confrontation and prevent adverse possesion? Would they have to sign the document?

Please help!

Thank you


Asked on 6/30/08, 6:40 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Cheryl Rivera Smith The Smith Law Firm

Re: Real Estate - Texas

I would need to look at your survey, pull the adjacent deeds off of the public records, and possibly visit the property myself before I could intelligently answer the questions. As you have guessed, your situation will probably necessitate some type of strategy. TX has a 10 year statute for adverse possession, so you may need to act quickly.

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Answered on 7/02/08, 8:47 am


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