Is it considered harassment if a neighbor threatens with legal actions on whatever I do on my property I hope this question is appropriate here. I moved into a house in a nice neighborhood a few months ago. I get along with most neighbors very well, but there is the one troublemaker like in every community. I'm currently replacing my old and rotten wooden handrail next to some stairs which are used by all neighbors. They were not really usable as such in fear of splinters and if one would rely on them when he stumbles they would probably fall apart. The new ones are made of sturdy aluminum with LEDs for the night to see the steps better. So an improvement in every way. This certain neighbor immediately contacted the authorities and harassed the contractors as he considers them unsafe as they are just handrails without paling, so a small child could walk under it and fall into a small ditch where a funicular runs in parallel. In this specific case he mentions his grandchild who actually lives there, he only owns the house and rents it to his daughters family. I order some netting on the area where the fall to this ditch is above 1m, but for optics and the price I decided against it where the fall is only 50-60cm. I am aware if someone falls and gets injured, my insurance has to pay. But I don't see how he could force me to build a fence instead of just a handrail. Talking with other neighbors, everyone dislikes that guy and against few of them he already took legal action. One had to cut down a tree a previous owner planted a bit too close to his property. I am planning to a larger remodeling of my land and even though my property only touches his at a corner I fear he will again try to take legal action for whatever reason he feels fancy. How can I prevent this or is there even a legal action I can take against him if it turns out as I fear?
You must comply with the law even on your own property Things like handrails and fencing of potential falls are almost always subject to local building codes. &quot;[S]ome netting&quot; is unlikely to be compliant except as a temporary measure. In addition, materially changing the functionality so that it becomes less safe, even if it complies, may expose you to liability if someone gets injured. Such as if the new handrail is replacing one which had measures to prevent someone from slipping under them. Harassment I'm unfamiliar with Swiss harassment laws but they usually require unwanted behaviour that offends, humiliates, intimidates, or creates a hostile environment and must usually be directed at a protected characteristic. Offending someone because you don't like them is fine; offending them because they are a woman is not. A neighbour raising concerns with you, your contractors, or the authorities is not harassment. Nor is exercising his legal right to bring a lawsuit. If it persists beyond what is reasonable it may cross over into stalking, but that's not harassment either.
Is the contractor liable? It depends. Trespass and conversion would be the applicable torts. In some jurisdictions, those are strict liability torts, in others they are intentional torts. The contractor lacks intent, but did participate in the act. I haven't yet had a chance to check out California in particular. California appears to come close to a strict liability regime based upon the relevant jury instruction and related commentary. In a suit, would PersonB sue contractor for damages, who would then sue PersonA, or would PersonB sue PersonA directly for damages? Person B would sue both. The contractor for participating in the act, and Person A as the principal upon whose behalf the contractor is working as an agent, on a respondeat superior theory. Person A could have liability even if the contractor didn't, in this fact pattern. Would actions by PersonA be criminal? Probably, as a form of criminal trespass, criminal vandalism and possibly even burglary (sometimes defined as trespass with an intent to commit a further crime). I'd need to check California's criminal statute definitions to be sure of precisely what. But, in reality, PersonA would usually have a bona fide good faith belief that he had a legal right to do so, and in that case, it would not be a crime. Would actions by contractor be criminal? No. For criminal law purposes, the contractor lacked the requisite intent. The intent elements of the criminal trespass statute in California are here.
She has no legal right to your stuff, and every legal right to the apartment. The only way adjudicate such a conflict of rights is with a restraining order. A temporary order would expire in 3 weeks. Item 14 in the petition requests exclusive use, possession, and control of the property. However, that path of restraints is tailored to domestic violence, so item 27 has you describe the alleged abuse: Abuse means to intentionally or recklessly cause or attempt to cause bodily injury to you; or to place you or another person in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury; or to harass, attack, strike, threaten, assault (sexually or otherwise), hit, follow, stalk, molest, keep you under surveillance, impersonate (on the Internet, electronically or otherwise), batter, telephone, or contact you; or to disturb your peace; or to destroy your personal property. Note that the description refers to destroying your personal property, not pawing through it. It's really impossible to know if the judge will exercise his discretion to include "reasonable fear of destruction (or theft) of personal property", since the ex-roommate has no further interest in the apartment. There is an alternative path of a harassment restraining order, which does not require a defined domestic relationship (such as ex-roommate), where "harassment" is violence or threats of violence against you, or a course of conduct that seriously alarmed, annoyed, or harassed you and caused you substantial emotional distress. A course of conduct is more than one act and that seems even less likely.
You did not specify a country or the specific contracts that might rule your condominium. At least in some jurisdictions indeed the repair cost of private portions cannot be shared. Moreover, you may not be required to pay some costs for common portions if you refuse to do so and won't make use of them. Do I have to sue them to fix this issue? A lengthy law-suit is too costly for me. If I refuse to pay $2k and only pay 1.2k, will I be facing any legal troubles? You will probably manage to continue paying just 1.2k, and have them have to sue you if they want to collect that supposedly owned money from you. However, there might be some requirements about providing notification of your refusal in a certain way or before some time elapses. I would recommend you to consult a local lawyer, it will be well-spent money. Plus, that refusal is actually sent by your lawyer (rather than just telling you how/what to say), should make your &quot;law-understanding neighbor&quot; think twice about going forward with their attempt of having you pay for it.
This is a context where you need to lawyer up. There are two issues, his share of the costs, and his permission to construct in part on his property. You mother has the same rights, so she likewise can refuse to sign off on his scheme (the lawyers negotiate a resolution). Assuming both parties are insured and (to make it more complex) have different insurance companies, the companies limit how much they will contribute for their part of the damage. Normally, you find a contractor who will do it for a given price, let's say $10,000, and the parties split the cost. Both parties have an interest in the choice of contractor because of cost issues, and quality of product and service (though the insurance company cares about the cost). If one of the parties is a contractor, they too can legitimately submit a bid, and then the parties can decide which is the best bid. It is not fraud if a contractor, who is an insured, submits a bid and makes a profit on the job. It would be fraud if that party withheld material facts from an insurance company. In the context of massive disaster insurance claims, the insurance companies may not perform a rigorous investigation (e.g. may not ask for multiple bids). It would then be a material fact that one of the insureds stood to profit from this arrangement, so the insurance companies would likely wish to see evidence that the costs were not unreasonably inflated. If the neighbors bid is in line with industry standard (and the insurance companies know who the contractor is), there is nothing fishy about the arrangement. This assumes that both parties are being cooperative with each other. When that is not the case, lawyers are good at getting cooperation (not letting the other party push their client around).
This depends on the law of the specific jurisdiction, but there is non-trivial similarity in those rules across the US. The general rule is that the person who owns the property must maintain the property. There are often local ordinances that explicitly say that, for example this which is the legal mechanism behind this guidance on tree-trimming. A municipality can do the trimming, or they can send official letters to property owners telling them to trim the bushes. It does not matter whether the sign is on your property via an easement, what matters is where the tree is. You are not responsible for trimming your neighbor's tree if the stop sign is on your property.
"If it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you." (said while grabbing the handle of sword) This is a famous conditional threat where the speaker/actor was not found to express intent to do harm; perhaps better called a negative condition. This probably confuses matters but if you are to search for more answers this could be a good place to start. One of the elements of common law assault is that the threat must be able to be carried out immediately; it must be imminent. I do not have a cite for this but I recall that this means that conditional threats are excluded from assault. So calling a politician on the phone and telling them that if they do not drop out of a race you will hurt them is not assault. So, "You cut that out now or you’ll go home in an ambulance" sounds a lot like, "stop or you will get hurt." The victim has the opportunity to avoid the danger; the threat is not imminent. But the facts here are interesting because the speaker touched the victim while speaking which might mean fear of imminent was real. But they were in a crowded room in front of cameras - could the victim really feel that threat was imminent? Plus, the "you will go home" implies a future harm. Oh, and the speaker does not say "I will hurt you," maybe she was actually trying to protect the victim from someone else's actions. Like when my teacher knew someone was waiting outside the classroom to fight me and she told me, "if you go out there you will get hurt!" I would hope that a jury would consider this hard bargaining.
The landlord may be confused about what is legal. Growing pot without a license (they do not have one: it cannot be grown at home, and certainly not if there is a minor present) is not legal, not even in Seattle (medical marijuana now requires a general marijuana license, and home-grown is not legal – some Dept. of Health pages don't reflect the new law). Under RCW 59.18.065, the landlord must provide a copy of the executed agreement to each tenant, and a replacement copy on request. Under RCW 59.18.150, the landlord may enter the unit in case of an emergency, and otherwise shall give the tenant at least two days' written notice of his or her intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times. The notice must state the exact time and date or dates of entry or specify a period of time during that date or dates in which the entry will occur, in which case the notice must specify the earliest and latest possible times of entry. The notice must also specify the telephone number to which the tenant may communicate any objection or request to reschedule the entry. The tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter the dwelling unit at a specified time where the landlord has given at least one day's notice of intent to enter to exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers or tenants A lease cannot be terminated without cause and a legal process (eviction hearing), rather, it runs out at a specific time (the end of July). The situation with dog-washing is unclear, since normally a landlord can't decide to use a person's apartment for a dog-washing operation (the common law right to quiet enjoyment). If there is such a clause in the lease then that would be allowed, but they can't now decide that they have this right (the terms of a lease can't be changed in the middle). They can restrict the cats from areas outside your unit. You may however have some (legal) misunderstanding about what exactly "your unit" is, specifically, is the dog wash part of a "common area" that isn't actually part of what you have an exclusive right to.