Property Boundaries: There's no such thing as a minor encroachment!
Any property owner may demand the demolition of structures that encroach on their property. There is no need to determine whether this demand would be disproportionate, given the cost it would entail for the at-fault neighbor and the benefit it would provide to the dissatisfied property owner.
This is the point that the Court of Cassation has just reiterated.
In this case, the owners of a parcel of land had sued the homeowners’ association of the building adjacent to their property to put an end to various encroachments on their land. The judges, however, dismissed their claim, arguing that there was a clear disproportion between the infringement of the owners’ property rights and the consequences that demolition would have on the building’s structural integrity.
When the case was brought before it, the Court of Cassation, unsurprisingly, overturned this decision, thereby reaffirming the principle that any property owner has the right to have a structure encroaching on their property demolished!
