Encroachment, need help.

[Nick H.]

Hey BP,

So today out of the blue I decided I wanted to possibly make an offer on my neighbor's unfinished house, so I called my real estate agent and asked how that process would work since it would be an off market deal.

This house has been not lived in since I first bought my home in 2021, however it being roughly 10 feet away from my house i thought it would be a good short term rental opportunity since my house and neighbor's house are both on a lake in Maine. 

Long story short like really long story: My real estate agent found out that this house was actually built halfway over my property line. like completely halfway down the middle of the house. I will upload a picture so everyone can see what I was talking about. 

My agent thought that the setback of 10-20ft didn't look right and she ended up finding this and now I feel as though I am in weird position.  My neighbors house is not at all finished it has no water, no sewer, no electricity, no insulation, no drywall, and the siding is only half way complete. 

Has anyone here been in a situation like this, how would you proceed? I want to make this a positive gain for myself since I do feel as though it is sort of a violation of boundaries quite literally.

I want to consider maybe selling the sliver of land they would need to have the house to be on their property, buying the house, taxes?? Have I been over paying on taxes since I don't get to use a chunk of my land?

The red lines is my neighbor's property lines. I am in the house to the right of that.

[Glen Wiley]

This will make resale of your house problematic. It is a very serious issue that needs an attorney and county building officials involved. I expect that they will require the neighbor to demolish the house.

You aren’t the bad here so you should have no reservation about getting this corrected.

I would not consider buying it because you can’t trust the structure given the contractors sloppy work on siting the foundation.