You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

[Average Joe]

A woman purchased a vacant lot in Hawaii at a courthouse sale. She planned on using the lot for some retreat or something like along those lines. Covid had delayed her plans and she had to stay in CA.

A developer, purchased several other lots in the same subdivision. And well what do you know, they built a $500K house on her lot! Now they are suing her because she refused to accept a lot trade or purchase the house at a reduced cost. Of course she is counter suing and the construction company that built the house on the wrong lot is suing. What a mess!

Lot owner stunned to find $500K home accidentally built on her lot. Now she’s being sued

The owner of the lot says she had no idea a home had been built there.

www.wpxi.com

 

[B00ger]

"Wow, thanks for the house!"

 

[bladesmith3]

i hope they have to pay to remove the house and restore the land. or pay her to keep the house.

 

[Stogies]

How do you even get away with something like this?

 

[GymB]

Developer isn’t going to win this. Once bought a company that had acquired a parcel to place a tower, and then accidentally placed it on an adjacent parcel. Nobody noticed for more than a decade. Was eventually able to acquire the land under the structure and didn’t even pay a premium.

 

[Get Off My Lawn]

Did @yard mongrel, or one of you other surveyors do some out of town work and stumble into some Maui Wowie?

 

[rodell]

The lawsuit is a negotiating tactic. She had to sue the construction company to recover her legal costs.

 

[yard mongrel]

Did @yard mongrel, or one of you other surveyors do some out of town work and stumble into some Maui Wowie?

I'm willing to bet every survey company large enough has some dumb shit like this in their history; it's incredibly easy to do with control localized to one lot when they all look the same.

 

[Button Pusher]

Perhaps some wise guy moved the permit box to her lot. 😃

 

[noway2]

The home remains empty, except for some squatters, according to neighbors.

It’s not going to be worth $500k for very long.

 

[fieldgrade]

How-are-ya’ has some pretty weird land ownership rules, too, heavily favored to the local indigenous population. I’m sure it will be even harder to understand with all their esoteric caveats. My employer talked to me about moving out there for a few years back (1985) when I was single and traveling light, after the local rep got transferred to HQ. It was looking like I’d just have to buy a high rise condo. No thanks.

 

[Get Off My Lawn]

I'm willing to bet every survey company large enough has some dumb shit like this in their history; it's incredibly easy to do with control localized to one lot when they all look the same.

Is GPS location confirmation used as well?

 

[yard mongrel]

Is GPS location confirmation used as well?

Not necessarily. A lot of our jobs aren't tied to grid, but we have other ways to make sure this doesn't happen.

But think about it this way: you have 7 lots side by side, all of them 70x175 feet. They are labeled lots 70-76. If you are pulling up to lay out a house to a bunch of scraped lots that all look the same with no or incorrect signage (a daily happening for me), and are just turning angles and resectioning from lot corners because you are treating each lot individually instead of as a group, it would be really easy to lay out a house on lot 72 instead of 74 if you counted from the wrong end.

Of course, this could just be the developer being dumbasses; many excel in that capacity. But they'll still blame the surveyor.

 

[Average Joe]

How-are-ya’ has some pretty weird land ownership rules, too, heavily favored to the local indigenous population. I’m sure it will be even harder to understand with all their esoteric caveats. My employer talked to me about moving out there for a few years back when I was single and traveling light, after the local rep got transferred to HQ. It was looking like I’d just have to buy a high rise condo. No thanks.

When I saw Hawaii and California I figured there were some crazy real estate laws making this case more complicated.

 

[Ferrisfan]

Step 1: Burn the house to the ground with the squatters in it.
Step 2: Throw the county official who approved the permits into a volcano.
Step 3: Mandate the developer return the land to its previous condition.


Legal disclaimer: the above suggestions, no matter how much they might improve the world and prevent such things in the future, are intended as comedy.

 

[Crankbait]

Several years ago a house was demolished a few miles from me. The owner came home and that’s when they realized it was supposed to be the one next door.

 

[NCLivingBrit]

Step 1: Burn the house to the ground with the squatters in it.
Step 2: Throw the county official who approved the permits into a volcano.
Step 3: Mandate the developer return the land to its previous condition.


Legal disclaimer: the above suggestions, no matter how much they might improve the world and prevent such things in the future, are intended as comedy.

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[Get Off My Lawn]

Several years ago a house was demolished a few miles from me. The owner came home and that’s when they realized it was supposed to be the one next door.

I’d be jumping up and down, wanting blood, guts and veins in my teeth yelling…

 

[Crankbait]

I’d be jumping up and down, wanting blood, guts and veins in my teeth yelling…

It depends. Neither house was in that good of shape hence the confusion. Our other house is in need of a lot of work so I’d be ok with it haha

 

[9outof10mms]

What no one is mentioning is the $500k house is likely a dump in Hawaii terms. I have no idea what houses go for in HI land, but I have to believe $500k is not a very big nor extravagant house.