you have cause of action in your favour
Hello, I need an advice pertaining to a situation . I am explaining the points in accordance with the chronology. 1.A cooperative society sold land to one first party who in turn sold it to my father also sold an adjacent plot to another person. Both the parties , the first owner before my father bought the land and the person who bough the adjacent land got the land registered somewhere in 1991. 2.My father bought the 2800SQ FT from first owner and got it registered in 1998. 3.The land was having it's boundary defined with brick walls at all the sides. The land has Road adjacent to it 25 ft on the east and 10 ft on the west. This detail is existing in the sale deed. 4. We started constructing our house in 1998 and built the complete house in 6 months and shifted to the newly built house on our plot. All taxes related to property were paid , were having landline connections on our name with the same address and electricity bill since 2000.. We were residing peacefully in this house since then. 5. In 2004 the party owning the land adjacent to my plot (a plot of 1440 sq ft on paper) sold it to another person . now this person never objected on anything since then. 6.Recently in 2014 , this person is claiming that his land was 1440 sq ft and in existence only 1000 SQ ft. 7. He claims that we have encroached his land. 8.The first party from whom my neighbor bought land never objected/claimed that we have encroached on his land. 9. My neighbor who owns the land since 2004 never objected until now about the encroached land for almost 10 years. 10. the land which my neighbor has bought in 2004 was having construction on both side, which in turn proves that it was pretty clear to my neighbor that in reality the land is lesser than the area recorded in his sale deed. and currently the land is in the same state as it was before he bought . 11. Now, recently he got the measurement done by the government amin working under regional circle officer, land deptmt. and this amin claims that we have encroached his land. 12. As per the map availble to amin which is an outdated survey map , we have shifted a bit inward from road towards his land which has caused the encroachment of my neighbors land. 13. We do not have construction beyond the total area on our recorded deeds and our construction is approved by the Patna rural Development (PRDA) 14. In main what my neighbor claims that we have shifted a bit inwards which resulted his loss of land and in return he wanted us to vacate the land or pay him to the current market value. 15. we never intended to encroach his land and have surplus land beyond the constructed area so if my neighbor or the land's previous owner if anytime have objected to us about encroachment earlier then we would have easily vacated/stopped construction. 16. Now the house is completely built and we can't shift our constructed house. and the present market value of the land is sky rocketting which I am not willing to pay. What should I do in this situation , Shall I approach court ? How strong is my case? 16.
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1. The extent of your land has been defined in the sale deed. The owner of the adjacent land took 10 years to realise that his land has been encroached on by you.
2. The possibility of amin being bribed by him to report encroachment of his land cannot be ruled out.
3. You may in order to fortify your proprietary rights file a law suit for declaration that you are the owner of the entire land. With a favourable judgment from a court of law recognizing you as the owner of the entire land you will be able to repel any legal attempt by him to emasculate your property.
1) as per the sale deed you have bought 2800 square feet land with defined boundary on all sides and road adjacent to it as mentioned therein in 1991 .
2) you have carried out construction on said land after obtaining approvals from PRDA
3) your neighbor has bought land of 1400 square feet in 2004 . if land in reality is lesser than mentioned in sale deed his remedy is to file case against the seller .
4) your neighbor claims you have encroached on his land .to fortify his claim he has relied upon survey carried out by regional planning authorities that you have shifted in wards into his land .
5) you should have survey of your land carried out to find whether your land is more than 2800 square feet . if it is so then better arrive at an amicable settlement with your neighbor
6) no sense in spending money on litigation if end result is encroachment has been done on neighbor land
Thank you all for your valuable suggestion and Time. There are few additional facts I wanted to highlight now since I suspect something fishy in the measurement made by the local planning authority of my land and his land. 1.The basis on which the local amin has made a measurement on my land is an outdated survey map. This survey was done during the time of british era ( 1905-1915) and in that record the road adjacent to my land is 15 ft. 2. My deed (created in 1998) which has clear boundary records mentioned in it has the same road more than that , will have to cross check about the exact figure but I guess the deed says it as 25 ft. 3. The local amin has taken the outdated survey map in account and claimed that we have shifted inwards leaving our land on road. 4. The PRDA department has made a demarcation of the adjacent govenrment/road recently and planted a pillar to mark government land(belonging to road). 5. When I got my land measured from a private amin from the road limit marked by PRDA, He mentioned that I may have encroached a feet or less resulting 20 square ft at max.Whereas his amin who has made the measurement, claimed that I have encorached 400 square feet of his land, to be precise ten times of what my amin honestly said. 6. We constructed our house when the demarcation by PRDA was not there , and we completely relied on the boundry walls which was made by the first party(primary buyer of that land from co-operative, reseller to my father). 7. According to my sale dead created in 1998, If I take road as 25 ft I have not encroached on his land. But , he is considering the survey details made in 1905 which is outdated and cannot be relied upon. 8. I do not have issues in paying him the amount if the encroachment is proved , and the money is at the rate of time when I built my house or when he bought the land.But he wanted me to pay the amount at present rate which is really high for the beefed up encroachment area(in real 20 square feet and based on his amin it is 400 sq ft). option 1- Avoiding litigation: If I go for an out of court settlement I will end up paying the compensation of 400 sq ft as per his amin's beefed up measurement claims, also will have to pay him at present market value. Whereas if I go for a litigation I will be paying for the exact land what I may have encroached as that would be proven in the court, also can ask for his negligence penalty in court. Waiting for your valuable advice. Thanks once again.
Litigation might take some time but it will send the right signal to the other party and preserve your rights. Initiate the legal process.
Thank you all for the advice, I have taken your advice and got the clue of the solution. Thanks once again.