Okay Reddit, I need your most creative, petty-but-legal ideas because I am DONE being the bigger person.
Here’s the situation (apologies for the long post):
My husband inherited a piece of land in Portugal with some cousins. Him and his mom have been taking care of this land for about 15 years (paying land tax, making sure it doesn't grow into an impenetrable forest, etc), none of the cousins are interested in the land and have already agreed to pass it to my husband's name. It has an old house on it that we want to restore and move into with our 3 kids. It's a perfect little piece of heaven with decent land wich we want to turn into a veggie garden, raise some chickens, and just have a great outdoor space for our kids to grow up since we've been living in very small spaces and apartments. Sounds wholesome, right? WRONG.
During COVID lockdown (because of course), a neighbour decided that a portion of our land was apparently… his now? And just went ahead and BUILT on it. No permission. No discussion. Just vibes and audacity. When confronted about it in a friendly and civil manner, he actually threatened us with violence and we had to call the cops.
We took him to court.
We won.
He appealed.
We won again.
Now he has appealed AGAIN. 🫠
So this has been dragging on since 2020, and we still can’t move forward with restoring the house or properly using the land because of this ongoing legal circus. Also, between all the legal fees and the time this is taking, I'm actually scared we won't be able to have the house ready to move in before my oldest becomes a teen (he's 7yo). Realistically, with all this money and time, we would have already moved in ages ago and our kids could be having the childhood we dreamed for them, instead we're stuck renting a small, old, top floor apartment with no elevator...
To make things even better, this man has cameras pointed toward our side of the land and even toward our backyard. So not only is he stubborn, he’s also apparently directing his own low-budget surveillance documentary.
We don’t live on the land (yet), but we live nearby and go there sometimes to make sure things are not overgrown or ruined. And we take out kids as well, I know FOR SURE he's been surveilling my 3 minor children when we go over there.
Not to mention that anything we try to do there besides basic maintenance that is legally mandatory, ends up being destroyed. Just one example is that we had planted some fruit trees and berry bushes on the land, only to find his friend's SHEEP grazing on our baby trees and destroying the bushes...
At this point, I’m not looking for legal advice—we already have a lawyer and are handling things properly.
What I am looking for is:
✨ Petty.
✨ Clever.
✨ Completely legal.
✨ Emotionally inconvenient.
I want ideas that will make this man question his life choices, without giving him anything he can use against us in court.
Think: things that are technically fine, but deeply annoying, confusing, or just… psychologically itchy.
Bonus points for:
Things we can do without living there full-time
Ways to make his camera obsession backfire or become useless
Subtle “we are not going anywhere” energy
I thought, where better to ask for ideas and advice than the this community 😉
I want him lying in bed at night thinking, “what did I get myself into? Why is this happening?”
He's delaying our entire lives and actually impacting my children's childhoods and their future. It needs to stop.
So… what have you got? 😌
Thanks in advance!