What follows are our general observations and opinions. This is not legal advice, it is not a definitive statement of California law, and every situation depends on its own facts.
Most boundary disputes between Los Angeles neighbors are not really arguments about where the line is. They are arguments about a retaining wall, a fence, a driveway, a hedge or a set of stairs that has been in the same place for thirty years and that a survey has just revealed sits three feet inside somebody else’s parcel. The line is usually knowable. What is contested is what follows from it.
Our first piece of advice in these matters is almost always the same: get a licensed land surveyor before doing anything else, and certainly before moving anything. A fence is not a boundary, a hedge is not a boundary, and the line on a title company’s plat is not a survey. We have seen more money spent litigating over an assumption than a survey would ever have cost.
Why the Fence Is Not the Answer
California recognizes doctrines under which long-standing occupation can affect rights in the strip of land in question. Our reading of the agreed-boundary doctrine is that where there was genuine uncertainty about the true line, and the neighbors agreed on a boundary and lived by it, that agreed line can be given effect. Prescriptive easements can arise from long, open and continuous use of another’s land without permission, giving a right to keep using it — though notably a prescriptive easement gives use rather than ownership.
Adverse possession is the doctrine people reach for first and the one that succeeds least often in this context, because our understanding is that it generally requires the claimant to have paid the property taxes on the disputed parcel for the statutory period, which is rarely the case with a strip of side yard assessed to the neighbor.
The practical consequence is that the answer to “the fence has been there since 1974” is not automatically favorable to either side. It depends on how the fence got there and what each owner knew.
The Los Angeles Complications
Several features of this city make these disputes more expensive than they sound:
- Hillside lots. In the Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Baldwin Hills and the Palisades, boundaries run across slopes. A retaining wall that encroaches is not a fence you can relocate — it may be holding up someone’s yard, and moving it raises engineering and permit questions before it raises legal ones.
- Older subdivisions with imprecise descriptions. A good deal of the city was subdivided long ago, and legal descriptions from that era can be less precise than modern ones. Two surveyors can reach slightly different conclusions, which is a reason to engage early rather than mid-litigation.
- Shared driveways. Common in older neighborhoods, frequently governed by a recorded easement nobody has read, and occasionally governed by nothing recorded at all.
- Trees. California treats a tree whose trunk stands on the line as jointly owned in the general case, and self-help pruning that damages or kills a neighbor’s tree can carry serious consequences. Our view is that nobody should take a saw to a boundary tree before getting advice.
- Views and light. There is generally no right to a view in California absent a recorded restriction or a local ordinance. Some jurisdictions have view provisions; the question is specific to the property and worth checking rather than assuming.
Disclosure, and the Dispute You Inherit
Boundary problems frequently surface at sale, and they are disclosure issues as much as property issues. A seller who knows of an encroachment or an ongoing neighbor dispute is generally dealing with a material fact. A buyer who discovers after closing that the garage sits partly on the neighbor’s land, and that the seller knew, is looking at a disclosure claim as well as a boundary one — and the two have quite different fee structures and timelines.
For buyers, the preliminary title report is where easements and recorded exceptions appear, and the contingency period is when to read it. Our view is that a survey is worth commissioning before waiving contingencies on any property where fences, walls or driveways look ambiguous.
How These Usually Resolve
Litigating a boundary to judgment is expensive relative to the value of the strip, and both parties usually still have to live next to each other afterwards. In our experience most of these are better resolved by agreement: a lot line adjustment, a recorded boundary line agreement, a written easement on defined terms, or a license permitting an encroachment to remain for a period with agreed responsibility for maintenance and removal.
The thing we would push for in any of those is that the outcome gets recorded. A verbal accommodation between neighbors who get on well is worth very little to the next owner, and these disputes have a way of reappearing at the next sale.
Fees
Boundary and easement work is generally handled on an hourly basis rather than a contingency, and for a defined piece of work — reviewing a survey and title, or drafting and recording a boundary agreement — we can often quote a flat fee. Where a matter becomes a post-closing disclosure claim against a seller, that is different work and the arrangement is set out separately in writing.
If you are looking at a survey that has produced an unwelcome surprise, we are glad to look at it with you before anything gets moved. Call us at (310) 556-9692.
Related reading: our real estate resource page, along with what sellers must disclose on the Transfer Disclosure Statement — where a known encroachment belongs; what an “as-is” sale does and does not protect; and buying a home with unpermitted construction in Los Angeles — the problem that often sits alongside this one.
This article reflects our general views and opinions rather than legal advice, and it is not a definitive statement of California law. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and our firm. Every matter turns on its own facts, and we would encourage you to speak with a lawyer about yours.
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