Sure thing, man. Then he stepped back inside like the conversation was finished. I walked back to my house, grabbed the folder where I kept all the paperwork from when I bought the property, and pulled out the land survey, clear boundary lines, exact measurements. I walked back outside with a tape measure, measured from the fence, then from the post, then from the corner marker I had installed when I built the fence years earlier.
The balcony wasn’t barely crossing the line. It was hanging almost 3 ft over it. and that support post about 2 feet inside my property. I took photos, measured again, took more photos. Then I walked around the maple tree. The branches on one side had been cut back hard, not trimmed, not pruned, just removed to make room for the structure.
They from across the street wandered over while I was standing there. He looked up. Holy hell, he said. Right. I replied. He walked under the balcony squinting. They build this while you were gone. Apparently, he whistled. That’s bold. Bold. That was a polite word for it. That night, I sat at my kitchen table looking through city zoning rules online.
Turns out there are a lot of regulations about where structures can be built. Setbacks, property lines, encroachments, and balconies projecting over another property. Yeah, those get attention real fast. The next morning, I called the city building department. A woman named Carol answered. Calm voice. sounded like she’d heard every kind of neighbor dispute imaginable.
I explained the situation. There was a pause. Then she said, “Can you send photos?” I emailed them over. 10 minutes later, my phone rang. “Sir, that looks like a structural encroachment.” That was the first time I heard that phrase. Structural encroachment, which basically means someone built something where they absolutely were not supposed to.
