[P]olice say a Newport man got so frustrated over a property line dispute that he took matters into his own hands.
With a chain saw.
Herman LeBlanc is accused of chopping a chunk off his neighbor’s boathouse. After appearing in court, LeBlanc was barred from returning to his home on Lake Memphremagog.
Instead, he may be going to prison.
On top of it, LeBlanc might lose his house to the neighbor he’s fighting with, who intends to buy him out.
The dispute between the 80-year-old LeBlanc and his 76-year-old neighbor, retired executive Robert Snelgrove, started several years ago, sources say.
According to police, LeBlanc grew tired of what he saw as inadequate enforcement over the boathouse, which he claims was illegally built.
Records allege LeBlanc dismantled a third of Snelgrove’s boathouse in mid-June, over the course of several days, using a chain saw, a reciprocating saw, a circulating saw and a tractor.
LeBlanc and his son said they sought help before LeBlanc allegedly damaged the building.
They said they asked for help from the U.S. Postal Service, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the Vermont State Police, Gov. Phil Scott, numerous legal venues including the Supreme Court, and local Newport authorities — almost entirely, they said, to no avail.
Son David LeBlanc has theories why the building was allowed. He said it was a clear-cut case of an illegal structure and that he doesn’t understand why it’s been allowed to stand.
Snelgrove’s attorney, on the other hand, said authorities have simply held off on enforcement until litigation surrounding the boathouse gets resolved. If things turn out in Snelgrove’s favor, his attorney said, the boathouse could be entirely legal. Enforcement officials have agreed to wait a reasonable amount of time to see if that’s how things end up, said the attorney, Chris Roy, of Downs Rachlin Martin.
He has pleaded not guilty, according to the Caledonian Record.
Conditions of his bail include a restraining order that doesn’t allow him within 300 feet of the Snelgroves, and he must observe a 24-hour curfew, Roy said.
Herman LeBlanc must also submit to tests of his competence and sanity, the Caledonian Record reported.
He has accused Snelgrove of building at least a portion of the boathouse beyond the property line. Herman LeBlanc also alleges his neighbor buried under LeBlanc’s lawn several reinforcements for a concrete wall for the boathouse, and illegally built at least part of that wall on LeBlanc’s property.
But David LeBlanc said his father simply removed portions of the boathouse that were on his own property.
Herman LeBlanc’s grandson, who works occasionally for Snelgrove, discovered the damage to the boathouse around June 16, David LeBlanc said. The grandson alerted Snelgrove, who was in France at the time, Roy said. Snelgrove then called state police.
The boathouse isn’t the only issue in dispute between the two, neighbors for decades.
But theirs is a case pursued so zealously that one judge opined: “based on what I’ve seen, everybody’s kind of enjoying the litigation.”
Herman LeBlanc has previously sued another neighbor, Glen Brown, in 2010, a case he lost but appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.
In that case, Herman LeBlanc accused his neighbor of slander, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress after Brown had him arrested for allegedly trespassing on land Brown claimed to own.
Herman LeBlanc said he had permission to drive his ATV where he did and that Brown didn’t own the strip of property in question. Herman LeBlanc would drive through the land repeatedly, prompting Brown to call the police regularly.
LeBlanc lost his appeal to the Supreme Court.
The recent episode with a chain saw is allegedly Herman LeBlanc’s third attempt at rendering his neighbor’s boathouse unusable.
According to Roy, LeBlanc in 2009 sank about 1,000 large stones directly in front of the boathouse, apparently to prevent Snelgrove from being able to leave the boathouse, or perhaps with the intent of damaging Snelgrove’s boat.
Courts found Herman LeBlanc had illegally altered the lake bed and forced him to pay for divers to recover the stones, then have them floated in a raft to shore and trucked away on a road built solely for that job, Roy said.
Two years ago, Herman LeBlanc sawed a hole in the roof of Snelgrove’s boathouse, wrapped chains around the rafters and tried to use his tractor to pull it down, Roy said.
A jury in that case found that Herman LeBlanc had trespassed on Snelgrove’s property, and fined him $12,600 to compensate for the damage and $25,000 as punishment, according to court documents.
Herman LeBlanc could land in prison over the latest alleged incident.
However, according to his son, LeBlanc had little recourse other than taking action into his own hands.
David LeBlanc claimed Snelgrove built the boathouse without a host of required permits, and he said town officials at Newport Center, state officials with Vermont regulatory agencies, and federal officials with the Army Corps of Engineers have all failed to act. He claims many of these officials are corrupt.
Snelgrove built the disputed boathouse in 2007. Court records show he replaced a smaller boathouse that had been in place for decades. A portion of the boundary between the properties traced along part of the old boathouse’s back wall and along a side wall to the lake.
Today’s zoning restrictions in the town of Newport don’t allow structures like that to be built directly against a property line. Instead, new structures must be at least 25 feet from neighbors’ properties.
But because the original boathouse existed before that zoning ordinance took effect, Vermont law allows Snelgrove to rebuild an essentially identical structure in the same place.
Roy said Snelgrove did make one mistake: building the new boathouse taller than the one it replaced.
“This is not the same building,” David LeBlanc said. “There’s nothing from the state of Vermont saying he was OK to build any of this.”
Nor is there a valid permit from the Army Corps of Engineers authorizing the stream diversion or the 15-foot-tall concrete sluiceway through which it’s diverted, David LeBlanc said.
Roy said that’s not the case.
In fact, the lawyer said, Snelgrove did get permission from the Army Corps to divert the stream (“They’re fine with it,” he said). And Roy’s made himself available to the Army Corps in case of any questions, he said. The Corps hasn’t called, Roy added.
A segment of the sluiceway wall, and reinforcements for the wall’s foundations, may extend onto the neighboring property, Roy said.
But that wall actually replaces the former boathouse wall, which kept LeBlanc’s lawn from eroding into the stream the sluiceway now diverts.
Although the LeBlancs claim a corner of the boathouse trespasses on their property, the Supreme Court found that it does not. Contractors testified to the Supreme Court that they laser-surveyed the original boathouse and built that portion of the new one entirely within its old footprint.
Furthermore, the boathouse doesn’t require the Act 250 permit from the state of Vermont that David LeBlanc believes it does, Roy said.
His client acknowledges building too high and is willing to tear the structure down and rebuild something smaller if that’s necessary, the lawyer said.
But it’s been unclear whether that’s really necessary, Roy said. A hearing scheduled for this fall might go a long way toward answering that question, he said.
That hearing could actually give Snelgrove ownership of the land onto which his retaining wall allegedly trespasses, Roy said. It could also remove the height limit for the boathouse, which applies only because the boathouse sits so close to the property line.
The hearing will deal with partition, a rarely used legal process most often employed to divvy up mutually owned property between hostile parties, such as in a divorce.
The lakefront land where Herman LeBlanc lived until mid-June — when his arrest and now a restraining order have prevented him from returning — was for decades owned in common by David LeBlanc and his sister and two brothers, after their parents gave the siblings joint ownership.
Herman LeBlanc and his wife gave the property to their children with the condition they allow him to live in a house there until he dies, David LeBlanc said.
David LeBlanc said he fears the partition process might force his father out of the lakefront house in which he intended to spend his remaining years.
That’s because two of the LeBlanc siblings, and the widow of another sibling, have in recent years sold their shares to Snelgrove. He now owns a three-quarter stake in the land on which Herman LeBlanc resided.
David LeBlanc recently conveyed his quarter share back to his father to give him a better legal position from which to fight for his property. The partition hearing will seek to split up the land that Snelgrove and Herman LeBlanc now jointly own.
As a result of the siblings’ sale, Snelgrove and Herman LeBlanc together now own three properties, including the one on the lake.
It’s unlikely that local zoning laws will allow subdivision of the property to redraw boundary lines and permit Herman LeBlanc to remain in his house, according to Roy.
Another possible outcome would involve appraising the property and requiring one party to buy out the other.
A third option would be to auction the land and split the proceeds.
If Snelgrove ends up owning the land where Herman LeBlanc’s house sits, the agreement within the family — allowing him to remain in the home until he dies — would not apply, since it was never put in writing, Roy said.
In the short term, Herman LeBlanc is living in another house he owns in Newport.
“Either way, it’s getting less and less likely that Herman’s going to be staying (in the lakefront home) over the long haul,” Roy said.
Snelgrove will aim to acquire sole ownership of all three jointly held parcels, Roy said.