She said, “Dale, when the other side starts sending informal envoys, it means they are starting to worry. Let them worry a little longer.” I wrote down the date and time of Gary’s visit. I wrote down everything he had said. I added it to the binder.
Patricia scheduled a formal case review meeting in her office at the start of the third month. She wanted everything laid out on a table so we could assess where the gaps were. I arrived with the binder. She had her own file. Her paralegal sat in the corner with a notepad. We went through everything methodically.
The certified survey with Gerald’s boundary markers and wellhead coordinates. The timestamped photographs. The county deed history going back forty years. The groundwater permit showing Elton Marsh had drilled the well eighteen years ago. The plat maps for Maplewood Estates. Carol’s signed and notarized statement about her father’s refusal. Richard Thorne’s two letters. Marcus Webb’s hydrological flow report with seventy-two hours of recorded data. Gary Purcell’s informal visit documented in my handwritten notes.
Patricia reviewed each item carefully. She made notes in the margins of her own copy. When she finished, she leaned back and said we were in strong shape, but not complete shape. She identified three remaining gaps. First, she wanted official county confirmation that no easement existed, not just the absence of one in the deed records, but a formal written response from the county recorder’s office stating that no utility easement, water rights transfer, or recorded agreement of any kind had been filed between the two parcels. She wanted that on official letterhead.
Second, she wanted the HOA’s own governing documents, their CC&Rs, their board meeting minutes going back as far as possible, and any internal communications referencing the well. She said if they had ever discussed the water situation in a board meeting, those minutes were potentially discoverable. She filed a formal written request that same week under the state’s homeowner association records disclosure statute.
HOAs in our state were required by law to provide certain records upon written request from an affected party. Patricia argued I qualified as an affected party given the documented encroachment. Third, she wanted a professional property appraisal that specifically addressed the impact of the unauthorized water usage on my land’s assessed value and water rights valuation. She had an appraiser she trusted. His name was Howard Finch. She said Howard had testified as an expert witness in water rights cases before.
I left her office with a task list. I drove to the county recorder’s office the following morning and made the formal written request for confirmation of easement status. The clerk told me it would take ten to fifteen business days. I used those days productively. I walked the full western boundary again with my GPS unit, this time mapping every point where the pipe might surface or connect to secondary lines on the HOA side.
I found two additional valve access points just inside the HOA fence line. I photographed them from my side of the boundary. I did not cross. I logged every coordinate. I also began keeping a daily log. Every morning I noted the date, the weather, and any activity I observed near the boundary. Most days there was nothing to note. That was fine. A log with no entries was still a log. It showed consistent observation. It showed I was paying attention from the beginning.