The Man with the Land and the Plan

In late October, DH went up to check on FPO and managed to catch the encroaching neighbor at home. DH approached cautiously, you never know what kind of mental state someone is in, and you certainly don't want to get involved in an unfriendly situation on unfamiliar ground. 

The neighbor was friendly and introduced himself as Wes. DH noted the laborers working on dismantling the old home on the property and Wes told him they were his employees. He told DH he owned a construction business and had bought the property so he and his wife would have a quiet place to relax. He said he knew the reason DH was there, he had a survey done and the land that was represented to him as being the parcel he bought was actually partly ours, which he didn't realize because the survey wasn't done until a week after he purchased the property. He told DH he would move his things off the property as soon as he could, but the gears started turning for DH, he had another idea in mind. 

A trade.

DH loves cars. And when I say loves cars, I mean Mustangs in particular. He's well known in the Mustang community here and was a mechanic for a while at a local dealership. 

That being said, he has ALWAYS had a shop or some sort of garage. At the rural property we owned that flooded, he had a 24x36 pole barn, a car lift, and private drive so he could work on his cars, trucks, my car/truck, tractors, and just tinker with stuff in general. When we lost the house, we lost the pole barn too as it was permanently fixed to the property. 

My 300C SRT8

DH casually brought it up to Wes that he would be in the market for a pole barn in the near future and Wes picked up on the trade offer. DH told Wes he would come home and mention it to me, but he didn't think I'd be opposed to trading off the unused sliver of land for something more useful to us. 

Wes agreed. 

DH came home and made his case. I was skeptical at first, I've honestly been burned by so many people that I trust NO ONE anymore at face value. I quizzed DH on how he knew this person was a real contractor and got a good answer for it. I told DH it was whatever he thought was best, we certainly weren't going to push back a mature privacy tree line for less than a half an acre.

DH called Wes back and told him we would agree to trade the piece of property for a built pole barn of equal value. They settled on a 24'x30' to be built on FPO at DH's discretion and location. The sliver of land would then be deeded to Wes and his wife with the survey to cut the piece off at their expense. 

At the end of November, Wes called DH and told him the pole barn had been paid for. DH negotiated with Wes and told Wes he wanted a larger barn to be built with the excess expense of materials and labor to be charged to us. Wes agreed and updated his laborers to the new plan. 

Thus a 30'x36' pole barn was paid for and to be built in the next few weeks. 

Stay tuned for a location TBA.