Neighboring Land Owner Putting up High Fence
 

I am looking for some advice with the following situation.

This past week I fulfilled my dream to purchased my own hunting farm (122 acres in Lewis Co. KY). I was extremely excited and felt that I got a great deal on the land. There is a history of great deer, trail cam pics and the main selling point of the farm is that it is bordered a large landowner that has over 1700 managed acres. The day after I purchased the property, I found out that this large landowner is putting up an 8 foot fence around his entire property. That means that 70% of my property (over 1.5 miles - my property is wide and skinny in depth) is now going to have a high fence running alongside it on three sides basically caging me in except for my road frontage. My great hunting property, one day after purchase is now essentially worthless for deer hunting as the main travel route is from my property to the large landowner. With his property having the majority of the bedding area.

I contacted the local sherriff and he told me that there is no fence height restriction. And if he does fence in the entire property, he even gets to keep the deer on the land. I also contacted the local game warden and he told me basically the same thing, however he is checking with the state department.

I also contacted the real estate company (Whitetail Properties) and they claim to have known nothing about the landowner putting up a high fence. However, the price reductions and aggressively closing schedule seems to me that the owner knew this was going to happen. (I won't name him..but the seller that I purchased from is a well known person in the hunting industry so I think it would be hard for him to not have known this was coming and the reason why he wanted to unload this great piece of land (at least it was great until last week)).

I just found this out on Friday afternoon so I'm still working to secure a real estate attorney. I've also tried to contact the large landowner several times but cannot reach him to see what his plan is and why he is doing this. Below are some questions that I was hoping someone could help with.

Questions...
1. Does anyone know the fence height restriction to put up a boundary fence? Seems that 8 foot is a barrier to stop game movement and should not be permitted. (I am still unsure if he is just putting this up around my portion or if he is fencing the entire property)

2. If he does fence the entire property, wouldn't he have to "drive" the native deer from the land prior to fencing it in? That's what I always thought but the game warden seemed to think he gets to keep the deer.

3. How am I going to be able to prove that the seller had knowledge of this happening but did not disclose it to me prior to me purchasing the land?

4. Any other advice would be appreciated!

I'm hoping there is some remedy for my situation or I may just be the unluckiest sucker in the world. This situation has my stomach in knots and the excitement feeling has turned into disgust.

Thanks for your time!

In my state if a landowner is going to run a high fence hunting (pay to hunt) operation they must attempt to drive out all the deer inside before they close the fence. If they are just fencing their property and not running a pay to hunt operation they do not have to do anything. I suspect the other landowner was using the property you bought to hunt on and now he is making sure no one hunts his property. I also suspect that the seller and Real Estate were aware this was going to happen and failed to disclose it to you. Talk to an attorney, you may not have to pay anything just to asked him if you have a case to get your money back or buy a good wire cutters.

Thanks for the input Oldtimr. Hopefully there is some recourse on the seller. Or I'm stuck with a piece of property that will have little to no deer on it as well as a property that no one will want to purchase from me in the future.

Of course the seller knew it was coming, duh.

This is part of the problem with city people buy land based on stuff that is not on their land or what they own.

You'll be lucky if you don't have to pay for half the fence. Here in Indiana if he put it on the property line he could force you to pay for half.

That's the bad part. I don't think I'd pursue that fence cutter option. Why not just man up and go have a face to face chat with the neighbor? You are looking at this all wrong, it could be the best thing that ever happened to you if you two could come out of that chat as friends. May be you could gain more options than you thought you had and it could save EVERYBODY thousands of dollars in fencing to just include yours INSIDE the fence he is going to be putting up any way and we can all get on the same page and work together.

At the same time I'd be looking for a little leverage on MY SIDE of the fence. Look up the zoning laws in the area and make sure you know them well. Then if they are anything like mine go to the county seat immediately and get a license to open up and operate a junk yard, dump, land fill, poultry confinement, hog barn, recycling center. That stuff costs about $5 an application around here and once you have it you are grand fathered in for any later legislation. In your situation I'd get all I could or could afford. You don't have to do any of that stuff, you just want to protect the value of your own property by keeping your options open should "something" in the neighborhood happen changing the value and available use of your own property, you can always do something else with it.

Might even get a couple truck loads of turkey crap spread across it all as fertilizer to green it up a little should negotiations "stall".

I spoke with the landowner who is putting up the fence and he is a very nice guy. He just got tired of trespassers and poachers (which I understand completely). He gave me some good info that is allowing me to move forward though.

interesting situation. Is he still framing your property in with an 8 foot fence?
-Jake

Well, that's cool that your able to move forward. If he is tired of trespassers and poachers, why not try to negotiate adding the fence around your property as well, while leaving the border alone. Cover the cost, and you'll still have your prime hunting ground. Good luck, congratulations.

in many places a any fence OVER 6 ft tall, is NOT allowed, comes down to zoning mostly
just so you know, that could still be a issue!

I hope you and him can work together as a HIGH fence border, is never going to be a great deal for you or in the future

BUT a fence can also be way to pattern deer and move them as well, as they will be limited on where they can go
so you can try and USE the fence to your advantage

I hunted a 150 acre farm that back in the 60's the state installed a 8 ft fence around a 70 acre field for the farmer there
I have seen deer jump over this 8 ft fence as if it wasn't there, and as crazy as it sounds, there are sections of the fence that have fallen down or knocked down by falling tree's and such over the yrs, and can be a BIG opening , and deer will still jump over fence rather than go thru the openings, and its NOT liek there is pressure or there in the wide open
they just prefer places to enter the field and jump that fence like it ain;'t there

maybe almost 50 yrs of genitic's of these deer jumping it, helps them? LOL
Who know's but I spend a lot of time in treestands over openings only to watch deer jump over the fence 10 yards away from an opening and up and down the whole length of the field/fence I could see from my stand, some 40+ yards from me, so NOT like my scent was causing the and hunted there for almost 20 yrs

so, as much as a fence can suck
some deer will still go over it, if you have the greener grass on your side to draw them!

Out of curiosity, it sounds like a huge chunk of his property line (at least 1.5 miles) has you as a neighbor. If you build up a rapport with him and he feels comfortable that you will control access from your property onto his, that could save him a huge amount of $$ by not having to fence his property where it's contiguous with yours. It also allows both of you to still draw a wider gene pool for the deer running on both of your properties.

Another question. Does your neighbor live on his property? Are you going to live on yours? If one of you lives on your respective properties, that person could grant the other permission to enforce no trespassing signs, call local LE, etc. If his main issue is trespassers and poachers, there may be a way to come to a more productive agreement that resolves that problem and benefits both of you.

An 8 foot fence is nothing to whitetails. They will clear that while standing still.