They Tore Out My Property Fence—Then Their $20M Development Hit a Wall — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00That ugly fence is coming down today.
2. 0:02Ma'am, I set those posts on a surveyed
3. 0:05line.
4. 0:06Please don't touch the corner.
5. 0:08It's a few feet of dirt, Mr. Brennan. My
6. 0:11road goes in this week.
7. 0:13Those few feet are the only reason your
8. 0:14road is legal.
9. 0:16My attorneys disagree.
10. 0:18Are we done?
11. 0:20Just look at the plat I brought you.
12. 0:2210 minutes.
13. 0:24I don't need a plat.
14. 0:26I need an excavator.
15. 0:28She got one. And what that excavator dug
16. 0:30up stopped a $20 million development
17. 0:33cold in 11 days. Stay with me on this
18. 0:36one.
19. 0:37Before we go any further, I want to know
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27. 0:54because the next story only gets crazier
28. 0:56from here.
29. 0:57My name is Hal Brennan. I'm 66 years
30. 1:00old, and for 35 years I was a licensed
31. 1:02land surveyor for Henderson County,
32. 1:04North Carolina. I've been shot at once
33. 1:06by a man who swore a corner pin had
34. 1:08moved when it hadn't shifted since 1952.
35. 1:12I tell you that up front so you
36. 1:13understand something.
37. 1:15I don't argue about where a line is. I
38. 1:17find it.
39. 1:19There's a difference, and this whole
40. 1:20story turns on it.
41. 1:23My wife Margaret and I bought 14 acres
42. 1:25outside Hendersonville in 1994.
43. 1:27Hardwood ridge on one side, a spring-fed
44. 1:30creek down the middle, and an old apple
45. 1:33orchard that still blooms every April
46. 1:34like it's showing off.
47. 1:36We built the house mostly by hand
48. 1:39on weekends.
49. 1:41We raised two daughters there. One is a
50. 1:43nurse in Charlotte.
51. 1:45The other is a paralegal in Raleigh,
52. 1:47which, as you'll see, mattered. In 1998,
53. 1:50I did something I'd done for strangers a
54. 1:52thousand times and never for myself.
55. 1:55I surveyed my own land. I set a 3-ft
56. 1:57iron monument at every corner and
57. 1:59recorded the plat at the courthouse.
58. 2:02And at the northeast corner, because I'm
59. 2:04a careful man, I buried a second marker,
60. 2:07a brass cap in a concrete collar 40 in
61. 2:10down below the frost line.
62. 2:13Then I built a cedar and fieldstone
63. 2:14fence along the eastern line post by
64. 2:16post directly on that survey. Margaret
65. 2:19thought it was overkill. I told her a
66. 2:21line you can't prove is just an opinion.
67. 2:23She let me have my paperwork. She always
68. 2:25did.
69. 2:27Last spring a company called Summit
70. 2:29Ridge Partners bought the 140 acres next
71. 2:31door.
72. 2:32Aldergate Preserve, they called it. 62
73. 2:35luxury lots, a clubhouse, a $20 million
74. 2:38budget, and a brochure promising
75. 2:40unobstructed mountain views.
76. 2:42My fence ran the full length of their
77. 2:44western edge and their photographer
78. 2:46clearly hated it. I know because it was
79. 2:48edited out of every picture.
80. 2:51I found a copy in my mailbox with a
81. 2:53sticky note. Hope we can find a friendly
82. 2:55solution.
83. 2:56Their friendly solution was $9,000 for a
84. 2:5922-ft strip along my line.
85. 3:01I learned later why that strip mattered.
86. 3:03The county required a second fire access
87. 3:06road before they could build past phase
88. 3:08one, and the only workable place for it
89. 3:10was along my boundary.
90. 3:12I said no.
91. 3:13Politely, twice.
92. 3:15The woman running the project was Dana
93. 3:17Whitcomb, vice president of development.
94. 3:19I want to be fair to Dana
95. 3:22because it's tempting to make her a
96. 3:23cartoon and she wasn't one.
97. 3:26She was 44, polished, relentless, and
98. 3:30brilliant at raising money.
99. 3:32Investors adored her.
100. 3:34But Dana had one governing belief and it
101. 3:37colored every decision she made.
102. 3:40Momentum.
103. 3:41Delay was weakness. Questions were
104. 3:43disloyalty.
105. 3:45In March, her own project surveyor, a
106. 3:47quiet man named Greg Lindvist, told her
107. 3:50the entrance road was staked about 18 ft
108. 3:52over the line.
109. 3:53She fired him that afternoon for
110. 3:55negativity.
111. 3:56Remember that name.
112. 3:58I met Dana once at my mailbox in a white
113. 4:00hard hat she wore for cameras and never
114. 4:02for work.
115. 4:04"You must be the fence guy." she said.
116. 4:07Not hello.
117. 4:08Not my name.
118. 4:09I offered to show her my survey.
119. 4:11She glanced at her phone and said
120. 4:13someone would follow up. Nobody did.
121. 4:15What followed instead was a letter from
122. 4:17a law firm in Asheville calling my fence
123. 4:19an unreasonable obstruction and
124. 4:21demanding I move it 10 ft back in the
125. 4:22spirit of cooperation.
126. 4:25I kept the letter.
127. 4:2735 years teaches you that paper trails
128. 4:29beat arguments.
129. 4:30I called the planning office and asked
130. 4:32on the record whether my fence violated
131. 4:34anything.
132. 4:35A planner named Marcus Teal pulled the
133. 4:37approved site plan and confirmed in
134. 4:39writing that my fence was compliant.
135. 4:42And that the approved plan placed the
136. 4:43entrance road entirely on Summit Ridge's
137. 4:46own side.
138. 4:48I filed his email right behind the law
139. 4:50firm's letter.
140. 4:51Then an inspector showed up on an
141. 4:53anonymous complaint.
142. 4:55I handed him my original permit,
143. 4:56laminated, kept in my garage for exactly
144. 4:59that kind of morning.
145. 5:01He closed it as unfounded. Through all
146. 5:03of it I never raised my voice.
147. 5:06That night I wrote in my notebook, "Line
148. 5:08is where I put it."
149. 5:10I underlined it twice because I could
150. 5:12already tell Dana wasn't the type to let
151. 5:13facts end an argument.
152. 5:16I just didn't know she'd stop arguing
153. 5:17and simply act.
154. 5:19In October, Margaret and I drove to
155. 5:21Savannah for her mother's 95th birthday.
156. 5:25Four days.
157. 5:27I told Margaret some time away might
158. 5:28help Dana let it go.
159. 5:30I was wrong. In a way that still makes
160. 5:33my jaw tighten.
161. 5:35On the second day, our neighbor Dolores
162. 5:36Pace called.
163. 5:38Her voice shaking.
164. 5:40"Hal,
165. 5:41there's a crew on your fence.
166. 5:42An excavator.
167. 5:44They've already pulled down half of it."
168. 5:46She called the sheriff and took
169. 5:47photographs.
170. 5:49But by the time a deputy arrived, 300 ft
171. 5:52of cedar and fieldstone lay in a heap.
172. 5:54Every iron monument along the line had
173. 5:56been yanked out of the ground, and a
174. 5:58fresh row of orange stakes ran 18 ft
175. 6:01inside my property.
176. 6:03They'd already poured a footing for a
177. 6:04retaining wall across it.
178. 6:06Here's the detail that still raises my
179. 6:08blood pressure.
180. 6:10While the crew worked, Dana stood on my
181. 6:12cleared ground filming herself in that
182. 6:14hard hat.
183. 6:16Dolores heard every word.
184. 6:18Phase one entrance.
185. 6:20Done, she told the camera.
186. 6:23Momentum, people. She posted it to the
187. 6:25investor page within the hour.
188. 6:2741 likes before dinner. I counted every
189. 6:30one.
190. 6:31The yard looked like a crime scene.
191. 6:33Splintered cedar,
192. 6:35fieldstone scattered like teeth,
193. 6:38and at the northeast corner, a crater
194. 6:39where my iron monument used to stand.
195. 6:42But I didn't stare at the crater.
196. 6:44I walked over to what was left of my
197. 6:46gate post, knocked flat but not dug out,
198. 6:48and I looked at the ground beneath it.
199. 6:5140 in down.
200. 6:53Excavators don't dig 40 in under a gate
201. 6:55post they've already knocked over.
202. 6:57Nobody digs for something they don't
203. 6:59know exists.
204. 7:00Monday morning, I called Ruth Alvarez, a
205. 7:03surveyor I'd trained myself. She
206. 7:05uncovered the brass cap in 20 minutes.
207. 7:07It sat exactly where I'd placed it in
208. 7:091998.
209. 7:11From that one point and the recorded
210. 7:13plat, she reestablished every corner by
211. 7:15sundown.
212. 7:17The result was signed, sealed, and
213. 7:20stamped.
214. 7:22Summit Ridge's road, its footing, and
215. 7:24its half-built retaining wall sat 17.6
216. 7:27ft over my line.
217. 7:29310 ft of it, all on my land.
218. 7:33My daughter, the paralegal, had a
219. 7:34complaint drafted by Tuesday night.
220. 7:38A judge granted a temporary restraining
221. 7:40order within 48 hours, and a stop work
222. 7:43notice went up on the gate of their $20
223. 7:45million dream.
224. 7:47Then the dominoes fell. Greg Lindquist,
225. 7:50the fired surveyor, emailed me his March
226. 7:52memo warning Dana about the line.
227. 7:55Dated, sent to her directly. Marcus
228. 7:57Teel's office reviewed the as-built road
229. 8:00and revoked the entrance permit.
230. 8:02Phase one approvals froze.
231. 8:04And when title counsel at Carolina
232. 8:06Frontier Bank saw a recorded boundary
233. 8:08dispute with a court order attached,
234. 8:10the bank froze the remaining $11.4
235. 8:13million of the construction loan.
236. 8:16Within 2 weeks, 19 of 23 pre-sale buyers
237. 8:19invoked their contingency clauses and
238. 8:22demanded their deposits back.
239. 8:24$1.1 million
240. 8:26gone out the door.
241. 8:28The court ordered the retaining wall
242. 8:30removed at their expense, 310,000,
243. 8:33restoring my land.
244. 8:35Another 140,000.
245. 8:38Add the interest on a frozen loan, and
246. 8:40the ugly math came to roughly $2.6
247. 8:43million before a single lawyer billed an
248. 8:45hour.
249. 8:47Their investors who had loved Dana
250. 8:48started asking questions. By
251. 8:50mid-December, her partners announced she
252. 8:52was stepping back to refocus on core
253. 8:54strategy. Her momentum video was still
254. 8:56on the investor page.
255. 8:58I didn't gloat.
256. 8:59We settled in the spring.
257. 9:01They paid damages, rebuilt my fence to
258. 9:03my specifications, and recorded a
259. 9:05permanent boundary agreement at the
260. 9:07courthouse.
261. 9:08Summit Ridge sold the stalled land at a
262. 9:10loss to a smaller builder.
263. 9:13I rebuilt on the same line.
264. 9:156 inches taller.
265. 9:17Some evenings on the porch, I think
266. 9:19about how close that line came to
267. 9:20disappearing.
268. 9:22A property line is invisible only as
269. 9:24long as nobody crosses it.
270. 9:26The moment someone does, everything you
271. 9:28wrote down, everything you buried,
272. 9:30everything you refused to throw away,
273. 9:32starts talking for you.
274. 9:34The new builder's brochure came in the
275. 9:36mail last week.
276. 9:37My fence is on the cover. Nobody edited
277. 9:40it out.