Court orders deconstruction of Big Island house built on wrong lot
Property taxes went up 10x on the wrong lot, when the house was built there. The tax man knew…
Many years ago, I was over at my brother-in-law’s (Bill) house when a friend of his who was out of town, called him to tell him that some guy had called him to tell him his newly built house was on the wrong lot. He asked Bill if he could run over there. So, Bill and I drove over to the house a couple of miles away. It was a newly parceled area of 10 acre lots. We met the “accuser” and went over his paperwork. Shor nuf, oops, the house was on the wrong lot, wrong by one lot. The lots were narrow and long. Missed it by about 250 feet. The house looked like a two-part modular about 1500 sq ft on a crawlspace. It had just been set and the owner had not moved in yet.
Lawsuits, foreclosure, bankruptcies, at least one divorce, and more were the aftermath. But the craziest thing was the guy who owned the lot, got frustrated that it was taking so long. He wrapped a logging chain around the house and pulled it off the foundation with a D-5 and dragged it over to the next-door lot. It shattered the sole plates bolted down to the foundation.
4 Likes
Had one several years ago where one part of the house was over the property line ooppps. Major FU, never heard the final outcome.
The older buildings in my inspection area are generally spot on, exactly 3 or 4 feet from the property line. Even going back to the 1800’s.
Right now you can’t pour a foundation without a “form cert”… a visit from a structural engineer to verify the forms are in the right place prior to wet stuff arriving.
“The ruling cites that the developer and construction company assumed the risk of building the home without a survey. Instead, the contractor counted telephone poles in Hawaiian Paradise Park. The home was then built on the wrong side of the pole.”
That’s the way to do it, - just count the telephone poles! “Is that my left or your left?” “is that facing the lot or facing the road?”
Yes! Now get busy building it! lol
Seriously, no survey? 
But wait. Is that pole over there counted as one or zero?
1 Like
Well, it could get expensive if the closest Benchmark was down the road a spell.