Lot owner forced to pay thousands after discovering developers accidentally built $500k house on her land
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Hawaii News Now
A woman who's land was built on by mistake is being forced to pay thousands of dollars.
Annaleine 'Anne' Reynolds purchased a plot of land in Hawaii in 2018 and later discovered that a $500,000 home was built on it without her knowledge.
Anne had been residing in California at the time, and was alerted to the construction company's mistake when she received a phone call from a realtor.
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"[The realtor] informed me, ‘Oh well, I just sold the house, and it happens to be on your property'," Reynolds recalled. "So we need to resolve this. And I’m like, what? Are you kidding me?"
In light of the mistake, Anne has been offered an adjacent plot of land of equivalent size and value - but she has rejected the offer.
Explaining why she only wants the plot she'd initially purchased, she told Hawaii News Now: "There’s a sacredness to it and the one that I chose to buy had all the right qualities."
Anne had hopes of building a women's wellness retreat on the land.
However, she is now being sued by the developer along with the construction company, the architect and others.
Anne's attorney James DiPasquale said of the suit: "There's a lot of fingers being pointed between the developer and the contractor and some subs."
In addition to having to hire a lawyer, Anne has been hit with other costs during the ongoing dispute.
Anne had been paying tax on her previously unoccupied land, which she says was costing her a few hundred dollars.
Now, in light of the $500,000 property being erect on her lot, she claims that she's paying several thousand dollars in tax.
As per Real Estate Hawaii, properties in Hawaii County are taxed anywhere between 0.61 percent to 1.36 percent of the home's fair market value, meaning Anne could be paying as much as $6,800 each year. Ouch.
She's also been had to pay for fencing around the property to prevent squatters.
A neighbour said: "Before they put the fence on the property there were people coming, looking inside."
Apparently squatters had left the house is a 'disgusting' state after someone had defecated in the hallway and in the bathrooms.
"Both had poop. The hallway one had poop on the floor," she shared. "It was disgusting."