I bought this lake house at the end of the road in Florida 3 years ago. On my deed I have an ingress and egress of 25ft to my property through my neighbors property. He also lists this ingress/egress on his deed. We have been using this old dirt road until the owners of 160 acres had a true survey of it last year. Come to find out- this was his property and he did not know it. He is in the process of fencing his property. My neighbor just fenced and put a locked gate across my deeded ingress/egress. He wants me to use the dirt road. I want to use my deeded ingress/egress. My husband went out in January to cut the portion of the fence across out deeded ingress/egress so we could get in and out of our property. The neighbor (an ex sheriff deputy) called the police. They would not take a report because we showed them all of the deeds, paperwork etc. They said it was civil and we had every right to gain entrance to our property. My neighbor wants us to use the dirt road. This all happened with the fence in January 2006. Just yesterday...the police came back out and we told them the whole story again. The officer said he was in our favor but his Capt. told him to file a Criminal Mischief charge against my husband for cutting a piece of top rail on the fence. The fence is still standing. He said my neighbor has been running his mouth around the police department he was once employed with and got someone to file this complaint. This report was direct filed with the state attorneys office. My husband is a police officer(20 yrs) with the City of Tampa. He immediatly called his supervisors. My neighbor also in January when this happened tried to go down to Tampa Police and filed a criminal mischief against my husband and they also would not take a report. It was civil. What do you think? Anyone know of a good attorney in this area? My neighbor wants to use a "adverse Possession" law. But I'm under the understanding that both parties have had to have knowlege that the dirt road we were driving on was their's in fact.??????

You have the right to ingress and egress and he cannot stop you. I suggest you send the deed info to the prosecutor and he will drop the charges, especially if you ask for a jury trial. I suggest that you send a "cease and desist" letter to your neighbor CRRR. If that does not work, hire an attorney. I cannot post a recommendation on a public forum but surley your husband knows someone. If not send me a private email.

I think you may need to get a cease and desist letter sent to the other owner and threaten to sue them for harassment and interference with property rights since you have the deed and it is legal. This is a party who just refuses to accept the ingress/egress deed and if they interfere with your property rights, sue for the amount of money you have had to spend to exercise the property rights. I suggest trying a state or local bar association or local yellow pages to locate an attorney.