Shocking twist after lot owner found $500k house accidentally built on her land and developers tried to sue her
Topics: News, US News, World News, Court
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: Hawaii News Now
Topics: News, US News, World News, Court
A woman has had another twist after buying a plot of land to build a home on, only to find it had accidentally been built on by developers.
Anne Reynolds had purchased the land in 2018 with the intention of building a women's wellness retreat on it.
Due to Covid, she was unable to return to the land located in Paradise Park Hawaii, which she bought for $22,50.
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But when she did finally go back to her plot of land in 2022 she made a shocking discovery.
A development company had mistakenly built an entire $500,000 house on the plot of land she had purchased.
Things only got worse when the developers tried and failed to sue Reynolds when she challenged them over the house being built on her land, claiming that she was 'unjustly enriched' by the construction.
Initially they had offered her land of equal value for her project, but she declined saying that she had chosen that spot for its particular qualities.
Now, a shocking new development has occurred in the case following the legal proceedings.
A judge has ordered that the house on the land be torn down.
The court order comes after a legal battle between Reynolds and the developer, during which time the house was occupied by squatters who left it in an appalling state.
Reynolds claimed that the property had been littered with faeces when she visited.
The court ruling read: “This was not an instance of minor encroachment, but an entire house was built on Lot 114 instead of Lot 115."
According the court order, the land was mistakenly built on by the developer due to his method of figuring out which bit of land belonged to whom.
The order said: “Mr. Lawrence testified he built the home on Lot 114 instead of Lot 115 because he counted out the lots using the telephone poles.
“But he built the home on the wrong side of the telephone pole.”
The astonishing error was also missed by regulators at the County of Hawaii, meaning that the construction was allowed to go ahead.
Lawyers representing Reynolds have praised the victory, though they said they had wanted more out of the case.
James Dipasquale, an attorney representing Reynolds, told Hawaii News Now: “While we didn’t get everything we wanted, this is a significant step in the right direction; the house is going to be taken down. She has a little bit of closure to that."