Well, the ruling is in! Of course all the legalese is still up and running for "perhaps" another couple of months. The neighbors' attorney was given the task of writing up the judgement for signing. How long that takes him is in question. The results, however, are not as good as they could be, better than I expected, and a disaster for the neighbors -- and they still have no clue what they lost.
We had expected the neighbors would get the South 15 feet of field. The first neighbors had used it so the 20 year 'sticky' applied. However, instead of the (actually 16.3 feet) land in question, the judge subtracted a four foot grassy line that was considered the boundary and gave it to us. The neighbors did win ownership of 12.3 feet in the field, 4 feet less than they thought they had which gave us 4 feet more than we had known we owned before the case was started. Semi-win for us.
It was the North half of the disputed property that surprised even me. Our attorney had expected the neighbors would get the whole shed despite it being on the line. The judge agreed that we proved ownership of the whole 16.3 feet North of the field. That means we can tear down our part of the shed anytime we wish. We can begin clearing out another 16.3 feet of land that runs along their yard to about 20 feet of their house.
I know they thought they were fighting for an additional 15 feet of our land. They are going to be shocked when they realize just how close their yard the new boundary runs. For people who called the sheriff when we were working on our undisputed land, I can't imagine their apoplexy when they realize they are losing land they still thought was theirs undisputed.
We shall soon see. DS moved my chicken coop to be trailer about 10 feet closer to what they thought was theirs. I am still about 10 feet from our boundary as I know it to be. Sheriff anyone?
