Posted on 07/20/2011 2:37:43 PM PDT by Mountain Bike Vomit Carnage
If someone you knew claimed to have bought a new house for $16, you'd probably expect it to be a rundown hovel.
But for Kenneth Robinson, that princely sum could see him as the new owner of a $300,000 home in an well-manicured part of Flower Mound, Texas.
On June 17, Mr Robinson took advantage of a little known Texas law to move into the abandoned home.
The house had been in foreclosure for more than a year and its owner walked away. Then, the mortgage company went bust. Kenneth Robinson answers the front door at his $16 manse
Kenneth Robinson answers the front door at his $16 manse
After months of research, Mr Robinson used the obscure law 'adverse possession', filled out some paperwork costing just $16, and moved some of his belongings into the home.
Under the law, if someone moves into an abandoned home they have exclusive negotiating rights with the original owner.
If the owner wants them to leave, they have to pay off the mortgage debt on the home and the bank has to file a complicated lawsuit to get them evicted.
Mr Robinson believes that because of the cost required to move him out, he will be able to stay in the house. Under occupancy laws, if he remains there for three years he can ask the court for the title.
He told WFAA.com: 'I want to be owner of record. At this point, because I possess it, I am the owner.
'This is not a normal process, but it is not a process that is not known. It's just not known to everybody.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016745/Man-uses-obscure-law-claim-ownership-300k-home-upscale-Texas-town--just-16.html#ixzz1SgOZ5PTC
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Would it be because Louisiana has Civil Law as opposed to common law traditions being that it used to be owned by France?
LOL
This is Brilliant. If thats what the law says then by all means go for it.
Actually, good for him.
We have tons of abandoned property in the inner cities. If we permitted anyone to occupy them—and thereby gain owernship (provided they brought the property up to code), then we’d get all those properties back on the tax roles
and a lot of underclass families would gain a stake in their neighborhoods.
(similar to the Homestead act).
This is known as adverse possession (”Squatters Rights”) and has been part of American Law ever since white people took land from the Indians. It’s “obscure” only in the sense that it’s like pluming regulations that are specialised and not part of most people’s daily lives.
Part of the deal is that he will now need to maintain the house, including paying property taxes (from this point forward — not back taxes). Which, if the house has truely been abandoned, should be an improvement.
I don’t get it. What if the original owner moved back in? Why can’t he take advantage of this? He paid some of it, at least?
This sounds like the illegals’ amnesty deal where they do not get to follow the laws we have to follow.
I smell an Obamaworld in this because in South Africa people come in when you are out grocery shopping and judges invariably side with blacks.
Who declares what abandoned property these days is very aleatorial.
“This is Brilliant. If thats what the law says then by all means go for it.”
That’s what I say. Leave the man alone. If it’s the law, then he should be able to do it. Let the common people have access the same laws the rich fat cats do, for a change.
I saw a show once where the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was being interviewed. He was saying that we have to learn the way rich people do things. They pay lower taxes, and accumulate assets, etc. because they know the system works, and they know what the loop holes are.
I’d rather see common folks and families have these homes and keep them up than the corrupt banks have them. We bailed these criminal banks out with our tax money and they still want more.
I guess he could bring water into the house and use it to flush the toilets. I am thinking “sponge baths”? If this goes through for him, he has to live in it for three years and then he can apply for the title. People have done stranger things for a $300,000 dollar home for sixteen bucks.
Just cuz something’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.
He would have had to know the mortgage company went bankrupt.
I’m guessing they didn’t keep in touch after he skipped out on the house notes.
If it doesn’t have power or water, wouldn’t it be considered uninhabitable?
I have thought about it... and it doesn't make much since to me
Yes it would per standards I once worked with. Harvard graduate with a sealed history besides being one of “my people”? How can he even leave and maintain squatter position #1?
It is an interesting situation but not much more.
“If you have a field, for example, next to my farm, and, I let my cattle onto your field, WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION, but, you were in a position to know (ie. the cattle were there all the time, not secretly) AND you never objected, never showed up, and never walked across the field, never put up any sign or fence or repair or a change of any kind...then voila, over a set period of time set in law, the land legally can become mine.”
Yup. This is a real danger for landowners. People should be aware of this and not let their neighbors just sort of “gom onto” their land. My former neighbor wanted to pasture her horse on part of our unused land — which would have been fine — but when I drew up a simple contract designed to eliminate the possibility that she or her heirs could claim adverse possession sometime in the future, suddenly she didn’t want to pasture her horse there anymore. Hmm . . . wonder why?
Strange days. We’re pissed at a guy who follows the law, but not at the bankers who don’t.
He has been evicted. I attended the hearing.
He was a no show, and who ever he had living there had moved out over the weekend.
He's moved on to another property just down the road in the adjacent town.
People who have attempted the same thing have been arrested and charged with trespassing in the next county over.
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