All Forum Posts by: Aydin F.

We recently had a fire that damaged our fence, the neighbor's fence, and a portion of what we believed to be a shared fence. We promptly repaired everything except the shared section, providing our neighbor with a quote to split the cost 50/50. At the time, they hadn’t obtained their own estimate.

Now, a month later, the neighbor is claiming that we’re solely responsible for repairing it because the "smooth side" faces our property, implying it’s "our fence." From what I understand, while not a legal requirement, the customary practice is for the smooth side to face outward (not toward the owner). It feels like they’re being difficult, so I’m trying to clarify actual ownership.

I pulled our property plat (attached below) and reviewed the boundary lines—our property is on the left, the neighbor’s on the right. The solid line (which I assume marks the boundary) appears to run just to the left of the wooden fence. Does this confirm the fence is on their

side?

One thing that confused me: The plat includes a note stating, "The survey is hereby accepted with the discrepancies..." Does this mean the map isn’t entirely precise?

Any insights on how to definitively determine fence ownership in this situation? Would a new survey be necessary, or are there other steps I should take? Thanks in advance!

@Michael Baum Thanks for pointing that out. I do not have in-depth knowledge of the laws either, this is roughly what the lawyer told me, that they will use the land trust as the holding company and he claims they have done it many times and there are no issues. I am not too worried about that part. In my opinion the most worrisome part is that the lender is saying we will need to re-finance but the lawyer is saying we won't need to do that (according to his experience) and I find this confusing since I don't think Garn-St.Germain Act is saying anything about re-financing! To me this seems that we will need to convince our lender to not to re-finance but this is not guaranteed. What I am afraid is that we will end up paying about 2-3k USD to form the LLC under the land trust and we might not even be able to actually transfer the property since we definitely don't want to re-finance.

@John Underwood Thanks for your reply. Could you please also give some explanations that sheds light on your thought process? at what point forming an LLC makes sense?

Hi, I had two questions regarding the process of converting a personal property with a personal mortgage attached to it to an LLC. After communications with a lawyer and the mortgage lender we are in the following situation:

1) There is a balance due on sale clause in the loan files, the lawyer mentions a process of transferring the property into a land trust and taking advantage of Garn-St. Germain Act. to circumvent that clause. The lender is still persistent that we will need to re-finance the loan but the lawyer is persistent that won't happen. So I was wondering whether it is possible to circumvent the possibility of re-financing without being at the mercy of the lender or not?

2) Given that our names are already attached to the property, I was wondering that does turning the property into an LLC provide any benefits in terms of avoiding personal liabilities in case we get sued by a tenant or not? I have read on this forum somewhat contradicting views, some are mentioning that in our scenario doing an LLC is useless or probably it provides less protection than what we are expecting. I would appreciate if someone can shed some light on pros of LLC in our situation.