Adjoining Property

What is an adjoining property?

An adjoining property is any real (land-related) property that shares a border or boundary with another. Adjoining properties may share a fence, a wall, a right-of-way, or simply a surveyed landline. Adjoining landowners have mutual and sometimes competing rights, duties, and liabilities and are expected to use their property so that they do not unduly interfere with the rights of the owners of contiguous land. Landowners may not encroach upon adjoining land or deprive adjoining owners of the “reasonable enjoyment” of their property by introducing nuisances, endangerments, or actual damages.

Why is learning about adjoining property important for your HOA?

Properties and property rights are never held or exercised in isolation. Poet Robert Frost encapsulated the concerns of adjoining properties in two phrases: “Good fences make good neighbors” and “Before I built a wall or a fence, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was likely to give offense.”

What is “reasonable enjoyment” to one property owner may be quite unreasonable to a neighbor. Among the concerns of adjoining properties and their owners or occupants under the jurisdiction of a homeowner association may be property lines, landscaping and maintenance, rights-of-way and easements, setback limits, commercial use of residential property, parking and storage, noise and other nuisances. While simple neighborliness can solve some conflicts, HOA regulations and enforcement are often required.

How can you use “adjoining property” in a sentence?

Except on an island with only one owner, adjoining property and its owners’ rights will necessarily place limits on the uses of any property.