Friends’ son has a piece of property that he has owned for many years.
Recently a real estate agent contacted him about selling it.
He said wasn’t interested in selling as he intended to build on it some day.
Agent made repeated offers and became rude (as I got the story).
Turns out there has been a house built on the property by someone who bought adjoining property from said agent.
The property they bought has a large ravine that becomes a river during rains.
Agent supposedly indicated the wrong lot to the buyer, who bought and built without a survey.
The problem surfaced when the local sewer authority came to inspect the sewer hookup & told them they were in the wrong place.
Friends son has tried to be reasonable, had it appraised and gave them a reasonable price to buy his property.
They countered with trade for their unbuildable property & small amount of cash.
Whatcha think of that?
Joe H
Replies
"Whatcha think of that?"
Ask for the keys to MY new house.
Actually I don't think that he can get what is called "unjust inrichment" for there mistake.
But he should be FULL market price for the lot along with all expenses needed to fix that. Including things like leagal fees, moeny for capital gains taxes and the like.
Or have them restore the property to the previous condition.
BY when I get some time I am going to post a thread about foreclosing on the wrong house.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
BY when I get some time I am going to post a thread about foreclosing on the wrong house.
So, did you get the Sheriff to throw the bums out?
Joe H
sounds like friends son has a free house
I would probably go fence the land off with a big locked gate and no trespassing signs
Wow!
Looks like your friend's son is in the driver's seat on this one. I imagine an attorney could have a heyday with this....like he could seek ownership or demolition of the house.
I don't think I'd be giving up much ground (pun intended) if it were me. They could keep the ravine. I'm guessing the ramifications run through a chain of people including real estate guy. You'd think someone would have caught it.
Be interesting to see where it ends up.
Wow!
PJ
Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.
No never did that.
Possibly because the following is illegal in DE: >> Agent supposedly indicated the wrong lot to the buyer, who bought and built without a survey.<<
All real estate which is sold must be surveyed here. Agent is challenged, buyer is an idiot.
How did the builder know where to build? Setbacks, etc? - must be a big chunk of land.
How did the builder get a permit? I need a lines and grades survey for any new construction or addition over 400 sq ft. - this is so the sewer department knows that the drains will actually drain or require a lift pump. As soon as the builder had the lines and grades survey in hand he would know he was on the wrong lot. "Gee that's funny, I didn't see this big ditch contour in the lot."
Bet the owner of the unbuildable lot next door is not too happy either. He thought he had unloaded his place at a great price.
The only involved party that has not goofed somewhere is your son's friend, the rightful owner of the property and at the moment, the possessor of a brand new house.
Lawyers will have fun with this one.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Edited 9/9/2007 4:10 pm ET by JTC1
Interesting!
If the house is built entirely on your friends property, then it looks like he just got himself a new house!
The guy who built it will sue the agent. If the agent has E&O insurance, they'll fight it, and probably end up paying the buyer for the house, and maybe even have to reimburse him for the land purchase. The agent will have a nice story to tell at the next Realtor conference.
It looks like your friend gets the best part of the deal!
Of course, there's more to it... If there's a mortgage involved, that bank's going to get into the fray. They'll try to make a claim on the house, I'd guess, though their lien should be on the adjacent property, not your friend's.
Your friend should go to wherever deeds are recorded, and check to see where the mortgage lien is placed. It should be on the ravine land, not on your friend's. If it is, your friend should be OK with the mortgage holder(s).
If the materials for the house haven't been paid for in full, whoever's involved (contractors, suppliers) will likely put liens on the property-- not on the house, but on your friend's land-- and your friend's on the hook for that. So the friend will also have to sue the agent and the buyer to clear the liens...and the title attorney, who "should have known" that he was recording liens on the wrong property.
It looks like this'd be a good time to be holding an attorney's license instead of a contractor's license!
If the materials for the house haven't been paid for in full, whoever's involved (contractors, suppliers) will likely put liens on the property-- not on the house, but on your friend's land-- and your friend's on the hook for that. So the friend will also have to sue the agent and the buyer to clear the liens...and the title attorney, who "should have known" that he was recording liens on the wrong property.
In Massachusetts, where I practice (and I suspect in most places), a lien would not be possible because a contract between the owner and contractor is a prerequisite for assertion of a lien by a sub:
<!----><!----><!---->Mass.<!----><!----> Ann. Laws ch. 254, § 4
§ 4. Labor or Material Furnished or Performed; Sub-Contractor's Lien; Notice of Contract. the subcontractor shall have a lien upon such real property, land, building, structure or improvement owned by the party who entered into the original contract as appears of record at the time of such filing...
Since the contract, if there was one, was with the guy who thought he was the owner, and not the real owner, no lien exists.
Another poster mentioned "unjust enrichment." Since the real owner didn't know about the construction, he was potentially enriched but not unjustly enriched. Of course, he can always sue to make the nitwit remove the construction and restore the property to its original condition.
My students will get a kick out of this.
Edited 9/10/2007 2:02 pm ET by smslaw
I was hoping you'd see this.
Thanks.Remodeling Contractor just on the other side of the Glass City
Good points, but I doubt that the title agent (or attorney, depending) is liable for anything. At least here in Colorado, title agents only check records, not physical property.A real estate broker I know sold the wrong property by simply telling the clerk's office that it was so-and-so's property on W 7th St. Turns out that so-and-so owned three properties on said street. The wrong one was transferred. The title company was in the clear since they did a title check on the address and assessor's schedule number that was delivered to them by the agent.It did get straightened out, but it took over a year.It was very interesting for me. I just happened to know all parties: broker, title agent, seller. Boy did I get a few ear-fulls."Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."~ Voltaire
Edited 12/3/2007 1:56 pm by hasbeen
Never heard of that before. But I did know a guy who bought a hunting camp in upstate New York renovated it, new windows, updated the electric etc. Found out he had the wrong place. I forget how the screw up happened but he had actually bought the camp next door.
He got stuck holding the bag for all of it. The owner of the camp he renovated was grateful. He sold his camp and decided to live in town.
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
"Ever build on the worng lot?" Yes. Installed a 10,000 gal underground fuel tank on the wrong side of the line.
The story about fixin up the fishing camp was a Great Moments in FHB a couple of years ago."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Really? Where did it take place?
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
http://www.walkmoreeatless.com/
Just talked to my buddy, he's been out there taking pictures.
Turns out there are 2 unfinished houses on the property, one sheathed & windows in, other framed & trusses on.
Double dumb.
Joe H
Wow. So he can sell one and live in the other. I'm really interested on how this turns out.
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
http://www.walkmoreeatless.com/
Depends on the zoning. If it's single family residential, he'll have to tear down one. Maybe he can recoup the costs from the developer.George Patterson
But what if they are really sucky houses? The friend's son probably intended to build a nice dream home, not the pieces of #### they put on his illegally subdivided lot.
No one has said what kind of houses they built. Maybe they are nice houses.
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
http://www.walkmoreeatless.com/
Which is why I said "what if". However, when somebody takes ONE lot and turns it into TWO, they often put sucky houses on said lots. I'd think that the types who would build without a survey might do that.
You do have a very good point LOL
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
http://www.walkmoreeatless.com/
Not all jursidictions require that only a single house be built on a lot.
OK, they can be married, but not if they're ####.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
If the only penalty for building your house on someone else's lot was to pay them for the lot i think i might go to some nice oceanfront lots here and start building, I would not have to put up money for the lot, Sell the house , pay them fair market value for the lot and make a profit
We've gone through enormous growing pains here in the Valley the last 20 years. There were conflicting laws in my area for a while that meant a person could put 20 residences on one 10-acre parcel, but with a <10-acre parcel, i couldn't even have running water in my shop.
Very early in my career, working for a national transportation company, project was to install a tank & pumps at a leased location in SE Arkansas. I was overconfident and the company was too cheap to hire an archy for this little project, all I needed to do was provide a loction on the site and the vendor could handle the rest. I got a copy of the site plan from the real estate manager and misread it. Turns out the tank and island were installed on the right side of the PL rather than the left side ... only off by the width of the excavation.
The neighbor waited until the concrete was set and the pumps installed before he said anything. He was a gravestone engraver, or whatever ... carved your name in the granite. He was concerned that we would claim emminent domain and take his land. We were concerned that he would make us move the 10,000 gal tank, by now filled with gas. So we reached an agreement that we wouldn't take his land, he wouldn't make us move, and when we left (we were leasing the property) he took ownership of tghe tank.
He lost. That was about 1980 or so, and we installed a steel tank to the then-current sprecs and regulations. I imagine by now he has had to pull it out and bring it up to standards. Might even have rusted out in the past 25 yrs."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Just a thought.
Are you SURE they're building your new crib on the right lot? ;-)
They better be. Since the builder owns all the lots I'm sure it can be ironed out without going to court though. LOL
.
"I tell you, We are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut jr.
http://www.walkmoreeatless.com/
Sounds like they either need to pony up the cash or hire a house mover.
John
J.R. Lazaro Builders, Inc.
Indianapolis, In.
Joe -
I practiced law in NY for about 20 years. The last 15, I did work for one of the insurance carriers that represented architects, engineers and surveyors. I handled a few where the houses weren't where they belonged.
There are lots of ways that it can be handled or worked out and the real owner is in the driver's seat, but in most situations judges don't like to see somebody try to take advantage of a situation like this.
Owner needs to get to a lawyer who does property work and who also litigates in case the negotiation doesn't pan out. I would get everybody involved right away - broker, surveyor, contractor - and do a sit down meeting to go over it. Either hammer out an agreement or be ready to go to court the next day. But he probably will not get his legal fees back, so serious negotiation is the best way to go.
I would probably try to get some kind of insurance on the structures too, cause buildings like that sometimes burn down in the middle of the night when people get real mad.
Don K.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
Your buddy will probably need a lawyer. Add that into the asking price from the start (and tell the other party it's because they're being pr*cks that he needs the lawyer).
Certainly your guy should not suffer due to someone else's mistake -- he should get fair value for the lot (which would clearly be significantly more than the value of the unbuildable lot) and a little more for his trouble.
Big question is whether the seller had misrepresented which lot he was selling or the buyer just misunderstood. If it was misrepresentation the buyer should go after the seller.
This story reminds me of an incident in the Twin Cities about ten years back, though. A guy just finished building his new house on a lot that was mortgaged and, due to a business reversal, was about to have the lot foreclosed. The bank was licking their chops at the thought of getting the house. But this guy owned outright another lot about half a block away, so over a period of days (working from the inside) he liberated the house from it's foundation and then, in the middle of the night, hauled it down to the other lot. (He was in a business where he had some heavy equipment.)
The bank was livid, but, aside from a fine (which he gladly paid) for not having a house moving permit, there was no way to touch him.
Good god I never thought that i would hear a story like that again in my life. here is how the other one went. Some builder around here in southwest wisconsin bought three lots in a new development. started on his first duplex and by the time they had the roof on the real land owner drove by. as you can imagine he was furious. long story shortthe builder offered 6000 cash + trade lots. landowner said no. builder offers 12000+trade still no go. landowner said he would never trade and thanks for the new house. the builder called his insurance company and they covered the whole thing. they poured a new foundation next door(on a lot the builder actually owned) the builder then sectioned the house and they moved it with a crane, ripped out the foundation and restored the lot to original condition. here is the best part of the story. these were identical lots with a highway for a backyard the land owner soon got a divorce and sold the lot at a loss. would have been better off to take the 6000 in the end. so thats the only other time i've heard of that story good luck to the sons friend i think that people who make that mistake should be liable it's easy to build more houses it's hard to make more land Kjell Premiere contractors
one of my dads best friends... wanted to build 2 apartment towers 16-18 floors... goes round & round with the city they approve only one on one lot... has all permits & plans and builds the one... on the unapproved lot... gets a U & O transfers the now built building to another corporation...then starts on the next one... the city goes nuts... but he has the plans & permits and approvals to build the building... I don't know all the details of what transpired... but i know there are 2 building there and he still ownes em both... still very nice high end apts... but i was told he makes more off the roof rental for cell antennas than the whole rest of the building..,
p
This could be a great thing for your friend. Did you know the land under the Empire state building is leased to the owner of the building? The building owner doesnt own the land. See where this is going?
This guy just walked into a freat cashflow situation. Lease the land to the homebuilder. Everybody should be happy with that, no?
There's no way in hell i'd sell that land. He has captive tenants.
Edited 9/9/2007 9:59 pm ET by MSA1
we have a whole town here where nobody owns the land, the city owns the land and you lease it for 100 years.Fairhope alabama..Haga su trabajo de fricken
It must be a good idea then. Heres a whole city that wont sell its land.
If you want to be a pessimist, you could say that no one really owns their land.Stop paying your property taxes and see what the City/County/AHJ does.We're just renting from the government.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Me, I would sue to keep the house and get damages.
a friend of mine has 40 acres in the middle of nowhere,not worth alot,maybe 1000. acre. one day phone rings and this guy says i want to buy your 40ac at xxxx. he sells it and almost triples his money on it,grining from ear to ear.
next day phone rings,buyer says he needs the right keys for the gate,they are the right ones the seller says. turns out the guy meant to buy the 4o ac next door.
now he wants his money back,no way you called me and made a offer on my ground,you own it.
larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
I never built on the wrong lot, but I changed all the locksets on the wrong house once. That was so embarassing and dicey that I don't think I have ever talked about it. Now it seems small time. Thanks for making me feel better.
I was staying with some friends-of-friends in Salt Lake while doing an Christmas art fair there. The house was located in a fairly new upscale subdivision and they all looked the same to me: columns on every one of 'em, similar landscaping, garage, etc. I got home in the dark after a long stint at the Salt Palace, parked, stuck my key into the door lock, and walked into...the wrong house. I tried to back out quietly, but the owners held me until i got my friends a couple houses down to vouch for me. It was soon discovered that the builder had left many houses keyed exactly the same - it'd been that way for ~5 years until my faux pas.
Edited 9/10/2007 2:31 pm by splintergroupie
I was doing some work in this condo developement. In the section that I was in they where all 3 plexes.I was working on the middle one. The fronts of the 3 are identical, just stepped back from each other so that there is some privicy.I backout of the center drive and started moving forward. Remembered something that I want to check before I left and just backed up and parked on the street.When upto the front door and the storm door was locked. Could figure out what happened. And was concerned because I knew that there backdoor was locked and an internal safety latch.Kept working and wiggling the storm door and the lock released.When to put the key and and saw that the lock was completely different.it was at the 3rd unit, not the 2nd..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
<<Kept working and wiggling the storm door and the lock released.>>This is why i believe in dogs. <G>
Heres what happened on the street i lived on in NJ, the last houses were built and the lots did not measure right when they got to the last few, heres what my dad figured out, Bill built his house in the 40s, He measured from the end of the street and his lot was in the middle of the street, Sometime he must have found out he measured wrong so went back dug up the pipe and moved it what he needed, So every house was built on the next lot down from then on, somehow when the last lots were there everybody bought the last lot and split it, Old Bill would not admit it ever but gave a wee little wink and a we little smile
There is rumor of a very similar story here going around, right down to the point of a ravine on the one property and a realtor who has the sort of reputation a lot of people can believe would do something like this.
but that is as much as I will say in public.
I have heard lots of storeys of roofers re-roofing the wrong house.
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JoeH,
This is strange, I have a friend in the same situation right now... On a lot he has in Florida. A lady had a house(modular) put on his land thinking it was the lot she had purchased. Her lot was next to it, and pretty much in a hole, with poor drainage.
He has had no luck resolving this. He has contacted the state, the town, the police etc Has no choice but to hire a lawyer. He just want,s them off his land. Even made the local news there, making him look like the bad guy, because he wouldn't just Trade properties with her. And because of the law in Flor. couldn't even put a lien on the house..,
It's hard to believe it could get that far with nobody catching the mistake..
Northeastvt
Can't he just hire a house mover?
aimless,
He could, but why should he?It's not his house. It should have a frame though, pick the whole thing up? And it's on a slab, not even concrete, I believe he said clay was the norm for the area. It's just sad that it's come to this, it's up to him to hire a lawyer and pay 8-10g to get it fixed. And someone from the state said He may have to pay to move it. While the people continue to live there,not concerned about it? They just put up a pool(above ground) , but still.
Northeastvt
Were I him, I think I might start having a LOT of rather large, loud camping parties on MY land...Maybe I'd spray MY entire lot with roundup.Maybe I'd create an extensive 4-wheeler trail on the lot. You know, around the house, through the pool....
Yeh... That'll work.
Luka,
I'm thinking camper on the front lawn, for summer use by him. (Vermont winters are cold). Rent it out to collage kid's in the winter. Use her house for showers etc. ( not trespassing, it's his land.). I guess people up here are still in the dark ages when it comes to things like this , kind of glad I'm stuck here ;)
Northeastvt
Fun thread! Keep us posted.I like the 'use the land' idea. Make it an RV park. 4-wheeler track. Grow corn. Start parking your junkers on it.In the end, it's his property. Would he really be in the wrong to just bulldoze it? You can evict squatters on your land easy enough, can't you?The renting idea makes a lot of sense. Maybe a 100 year lease.One last option might be to get paid for full market value of the lot + the other lot with the other lot being brought up to buildable standards (if possible). Might be the most viable solution in terms of getting a quick agreement.I definitely agree with those that say he should be getting a LOT more than fair market value. If that were the only penalty for taking someone else's property, we'd all be running out immediately building shacks on any lakeside property we can find.
I agree that it is a crummy situation. Moving the house off the lot seemed like the most expedient thing. He shouldn't need to pay the high price to move it since he doesn't really care whether it survives the move - just crane it up and plop it down off the property. He can balance that cost with what he would have paid to get water and sewer hookups. Or maybe he could just demo it when he builds his own home.
Since the land is his, I wonder if he can fence it, lock the gate, and deny them access to cross his property to their front door. After he goes to the trouble of forcing his neighbors off his property, he's going to want a big fence anyway.
Forgive my total ignorance, but how is a slab not concrete?
aimless,
I think it's more like a pad. Growing up in upstate NY, I never saw concrete in foundations(not to much;) A lot of sand ,trailers on cinder blocks, cinder block basements etc. Frost was not a factor..My friend said it was clay in that area.(Florida)
Northeastvt
At that point, I would hire a dozer operator and have that house off in the street.George Patterson
I'd tell 'em thanks for the free house and that they should feel free to go jump in the ravine.
jt8
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly.
I said 'I don't know.'"
-- Mark Twain
Edited 9/10/2007 2:42 pm by JohnT8
In the 1940s, the original owners of our house subdivided their lot into four .14 acre building lots. The original house was on lot #2, and houses were built on lots #1 and #4. Lot #3 remains vacant, but owned by a third party.
Jump to 1999 . . . The previous owners of our house lost it to the bank in 1999. The house is marked #8451. House goes to auction and a buyer walks away with ownership to the #8451 property. Problem is that #8451 is the vacant lot next door owned by a third party. "New Owner" starts moving into the house that is actually at #8449, but runs into problems when trying to set up a new account for water/sewer. Turns out, no one ever bothered to change the house numbers in the 1940s after the lot was subdivided and the bank and realtor assumed they were correct.
In the end, the "new owner" sued the bank and won (but lost the house), bank sued the realtor and won, and the realtor attempted to sue the title company, but they went out of business, and third party owner of lot #3 sued the bank and realtor for "pain and suffering" and legal fees. It took 2 1/2 years to sort out, after which time we bought the house.
Had anyone bothered to look at the county plat map for our neighborhood, a lot of time would have been saved.
Jason
It was legal in my county to divide property down to 10 acres with only a legal description instead of a survey describing the property. It was a quick and dirty way to break up the 7000 ac. ranch into housing tracts, but as people began filling them up in 80-90s building boom here in Western Montana, the property-line hassles became HUGE. I found my well had been drilled 4' over the line on my neighbor's property, on my side of a road located within a road easement that runs between our properties. The other owner got really hard-nosed for a big settlement instead of letting me buy the ground or have an easement. I consulted a lawyer who told me about PRESCRIPTIVE easements. I then gave her the option of selling me the land at a very generous price i specified, or just taking the use of it under the law with no compensation. She became more reasonable.Prescriptive easements are an interesting principle...one can lose one's right to the land simply by not defending it. I'm not sure how i feel about it since it seems wrong to make the owner do that, but in my case, i'd done nothing wrong either while the other party was being an absolute butthead about a wellhead sitting on the edge of her 10 acres of land.
Yeah, that's basically the same concept as "adverse possession", and has been discussed here several times. Basically, after some time period of generally 10-20 years, the law starts to favor the person who's technically encroaching on the other person's property, primarily because so many boundary lines are vaguely drawn.Lots of state-to-state and case-to-case variation, though.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
I believe the concepts vary in that a prescriptive easement gives one the right to USE another's land, whereas adverse possession gives a squatter outright DEED (ownership) to the land.
Yeah, one would be used if you had, eg, a road on the other party's land, the other if you had a building or were making some use of the property. Lots of variables, as we've discussed before.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
I'm pretty sure you are correct about the difference.I'm curious about your case of prescriptive easement. In my understanding, in Colorado it takes many years and "notorious use" use of the property to establish an easement by prescription. Was there a substantial period of time before the mistake was discovered?
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
The well had been in continuous use for 20+ years, put in in the 70s by the people who subdivided the ranch - they lived on that lot. I and the woman whose property adjoined mine both bought about the same time, but it was actually she who told me that the well was on her land. I recall shaking my head and going "Whut?", but she didn't elaborate.Although neither of us had our properties surveyed before purchase, she acquired a BF who was a surveyor who figured out informally from looking at section quarter-corners that the road and property line didn't coincide as the whole neighborhood assumed. In regard to the checklist you mentioned, it qualified for the time period and continuity, was an obvious encroachment, and she was aware and had never complained...all the conditions were met.
I like the idea of leasing the property to the homeowner. turn the lot into monthly income for the rightful owner
could be a win-win for both parties.