>> Steve Palmer: All right, Lawyer Talk q and a, you can check us out at lawyertalkpodcast.com, where we are off the record, but on the air and back on the air here with another question, um, and an answer to come. If you've got your own question, you can again, lawyertalkpodcast.com dot. There's a submission form. I think that's the right word. There's a place you can send a question, and I'll do my best to answer it. Um, excuse me. This is from Jan, and this one reminds me, I used to do a show on the Blitz 99 .7 here in Columbus, Ohio. And we do call in, uh, once a week. And this one reminds me of this. I love this question. It, uh, says, steve, what's the best approach when dealing with a neighbor dispute over a fence boundary? Uh, is it worth the lawyer cost and hassle to fight over 16 inches of land, or is life too short? Uh, we'll get to that. Life is too short. Uh, we are having problems with a neighbor, but I'm trying to convince my husband not to spend thousands fighting over the location of a new front yard fence in court. All right, so I think you're sort of answering your own question, but there's a lot to break down here. So neighbor disputes happen all the Time. I deal with them all the Time. I get questions like this all the Time. Even though my law practice is primarily criminal defense, this kind of stuff comes up, and it does cross over to criminal defense sometimes when you end up punching your neighbor in the nose or maybe throwing your dog feces into his yard or vice versa. Or, uh, I had another one where there were actual threats going back and forth. We had a full blown civil protection order. Hearing this stuff can escalate, so you got to be careful. Um, but you also have to be careful about the property issues because there's, there's, there's some things out there that can cause some diminished, uh, value in your property. So if you let, for instance, a neighbor put a fence on your yard or build a driveway on your yard, you could end up giving up that portion of your property to your neighbor, um, like a prescriptive easement or, uh, you know, it's like, think adverse possession. People have generally heard about adverse possession where it says if you, uh, if you use somebody's property and you do it openly and you do it obviously, and, uh, you do it long enough and the person doesn't object, uh, then you end up owning that part of the property. Um, a driveway easement is sort of the same thing. It's called a prescriptive easement. Um, and then you've also got the same thing, like with a fence. So you got to be very careful. Is it worth fighting over in court? Over what was it, 16 inches? I don't know. But if you're going to put a fence up or if your neighbor's going to put a fence up on your property, I would consult with a property attorney. Because one way to handle this to avoid the prescriptive easement or to avoid the adverse possession is to not make it. Is to make it not adverse. Well, the next question is, how would you make it not adverse? You give somebody permission, so this happens, you know, I'll tell you a story. My father was a lawyer. We owned land down in southern Ohio for the longest Time. And, uh, he knew, apparently, that some of the neighbors down there were using the land for various purpose. So he sent him a permission letter and said, look, I hereby give you permission for this period of Time to, uh, use the land. And he renewed it. And I asked him why he was doing that, and he said, well, if, in theory, if I give him permission, it's not adverse anymore, and then I don't lose any of this land through adverse possession because we weren't down there all the Time to really monitor it or, uh, or deal with it. So, uh, I'm not saying that's the right legal advice here, but the right legal advice is to get the right legal advice. And if you need a property attorney or somebody with a little bit more experience that deals with it regularly. I got just the guy. Just give me a shout. Six, uh, 142-24-6142 or shoot me another email here at lawyertalkpodcast.com. dot I'll get your referral, assuming it's here in, uh, central Ohio area. If it's not, just go to your local bar Association, ask for somebody who deals with property, um, rights. Small town lawyers. A lot of times, guys with general practice offices deal with this kind of stuff, and they know their stuff. I'm not saying this is not an insult. A lot of those small town guys, they deal with so much stuff, so many different type of issues. Uh, they're pretty well schooled in all these areas. So, anyway, hope that helps. Uh, that was, uh, Jan again. You can check us out. You got your own question, or, uh, you want to get our back episodes? Lawyertalkpodcast.com, where we are off the record on the air with q and a, at least until now.