Someone Built a Structure That Encroaches on My Property (Missouri)

Here's the short version: confirm exactly where the line runs, understand the ten-year clock that could hand the strip to your neighbor, and choose from a ladder of options running from a friendly recorded agreement up to a lawsuit. Just don't do nothing — silence is the one response that can quietly cost you the land.

First, confirm the line with a current survey

Before any letter or lawyer, nail down the facts. With an expensive structure on the table, precision matters even more — every inch can change who pays for what.

• Order a current survey. Hire a licensed Missouri land surveyor to locate your deed description on the ground, set the corner monuments, and mark exactly how far the structure crosses the line. A stamped survey is your single most persuasive document, in a conversation or in court.
• Pull both deeds. Read the legal description in your recorded deed, and your neighbor's if you can. The survey turns those written words into stakes you can measure against the foundation.
• Photograph and date everything. Once the line is flagged, photograph the structure relative to the stakes and note the date — this record matters if a clock ever becomes the issue.

Don't assume your neighbor acted in bad faith. Most encroaching structures are built by an owner or contractor who honestly believed they were on their own land — and that good faith matters a great deal when you reach the remedy stage.

Why an encroaching structure is a real problem

A permanent structure on your land is more than an eyesore — it creates legal risk that grows the longer it sits.

• It's a trespass on your title. The ground under that garage corner or driveway slab is your land, and the neighbor occupying it is trespassing. The encroachment blocks your use of the strip, can complicate a future sale, and will cloud your title the moment a buyer's surveyor catches it.
• Time can hand the strip to your neighbor. Under Missouri's ten-year limitations rule (RSMo § 516.010), someone who possesses your land in a way that is open, notorious, exclusive, hostile, and continuous for ten years can acquire title through adverse possession. A garage or wall sitting openly on your side for a decade is a textbook claim. A related risk is a prescriptive easement — if the neighbor uses the strip (say, a driveway) openly and adversely for roughly the same period, they can win a permanent right to keep using it even though you keep title.

The reassuring flip side: if even one element is missing for the full ten years, the claim usually fails. That's exactly why acting now, and documenting it, is so powerful.

The hard part: can you actually force removal?

This is where an expensive structure differs sharply from a fence. Yes, Missouri courts can order a structure removed — that's an ejectment action, often paired with a quiet title suit (RSMo § 527.150) to declare the strip is yours. But a court won't automatically bulldoze a garage because its corner is a few inches over.

Where a structure was built in good faith and tearing it down would cost vastly more than the harm it actually causes you, Missouri courts apply a balancing of the equities — a relative-hardship analysis. Instead of forcing demolition, a court may:

• Award you money damages for the value of the strip and any loss of use, or
• Compel a sale or grant of an easement for the footprint the structure occupies, so the neighbor keeps the building but pays you for the ground.

In plain terms: the bigger and more innocent the structure, the more likely a court resolves it with dollars or a deeded strip rather than a wrecking crew. A deliberate encroachment, or one that's cheap to move and genuinely harms your use, is far more likely to draw an order of removal. Knowing this lets you negotiate realistically instead of threatening a demolition a court may never grant.

How granting written permission stops the clock

Of the five adverse-possession elements, hostile is the easiest to defeat — and "hostile" doesn't mean angry. It means without the owner's permission. If you give the neighbor written permission to keep the structure where it is for now, their use becomes permissive, not hostile, and the adverse-possession and prescriptive-easement clocks cannot run while that permission stands.

A short, dated, signed letter granting revocable permission — making clear it is not a transfer of any property right — can neutralize a years-long threat in a single page. With an expensive structure you may not want forced off your land tomorrow anyway, permission is often the gentlest tool you have: it freezes the clock and buys time to negotiate a permanent fix without a confrontation.

Your options, from friendliest to firmest

You rarely need to jump straight to a lawsuit. Match the response to the structure and the relationship.

• Have the conversation — with the survey in hand. Most neighbors don't know the structure is over the line. Show them the stakes and treat it as a shared problem; many disputes end here.
• Sign and record a boundary-line agreement. If you both want certainty about where the line runs, agree in writing and record it with the county recorder so it binds future owners too.
• Sell or grant an easement for the footprint. For a permanent structure that's wasteful to tear down, the cleanest fix is often to sell the strip (recording a corrected deed) or grant a recorded easement for the area the building occupies — for fair value. This is frequently the same outcome a court would reach, without litigation.
• Send a written demand. If the neighbor won't cooperate, send a dated demand to remove or resolve the encroachment. Even if ignored, that letter helps interrupt the "hostile" or "continuous" element and protects you.
• Sue as a last resort. A quiet title action (RSMo § 527.150) plus ejectment lets a court declare the boundary and decide the remedy — removal, damages, or a compelled easement. It's slower and costlier, but it's there when nothing else works.

How to resolve it without a courtroom

Litigation over a structure is expensive and hard on a relationship you'll live beside for years. Most of these disputes settle, and a little structure helps.

• Lead with the survey, not emotion. A professional line takes the argument out of "he said, she said."
• Be flexible on the remedy. Because a court may well order a sale or easement rather than demolition, offering that outcome voluntarily — for fair value — is often the fastest path to "yes."
• Try mediation. A neutral mediator can resolve a boundary dispute in a single sitting for a fraction of litigation's cost.
• Record whatever you agree in a signed document so it sticks with the land, and mind the calendar — keep your demand or permission letter on file and don't let years drift by. Asserting your rights early keeps every option open.

Frequently Asked Questions