When you're asking a court for equitable relief, you have a duty to mitigate the damages. If you sit back and let the damages get worse.....ie let them go on building that house on your property.....that is what courts take a very dim view of. That's when they're likely to not give you some kind of windfall you were presumably seeking.
Agree!
Which is why I say that, as the aggrieved party, one should wait for as long as possible before "suddenly noticing" the trespass!
The Court can't expect the Plaintiff to appeal for equitable relief before even becoming aware of the encroachment.
So the "smart" move is to wait until construction has been completed, and then "suddenly notice" that they've built on your property.
This might not work as well in a highly-developed neighborhood - but in Hawaiian Paradise Park (with which I am intimately familiar), there can be no expectation on the part of the Court that the legitimate property owner "should have noticed." On some roads, you have literally miles and miles of undeveloped property - essentially dense tropical rainforest - with no obvious "pins" marking property lines.
Regards,