A legal battle is unfolding over a half-million dollar home accidentally built on a landowner’s property
A Hawaii property owner is getting sued after finding out a half-million dollar house was accidentally built on her land.
The legal quagmire has attracted squatters to the house, according to a neighbor who spoke to local news.
“You already make a mistake, and then you build on my land without my permission. And then now you’re suing me for it,” Reynolds told the New York Post. “I was so mad. I was so mad that day … that’s a really big mistake to make.”
In 2018, Annaleine Reynolds, known as Anne, purchased a vacant, one-acre lot in Hawaiian Paradise Park on the Big Island for around $22,500 at a county tax auction, according to court documents. Reynolds, who lives in California and works as a relationship coach, planned to eventually move and host meditative healing women’s retreats on the lot, but was shocked to find out from a real estate broker last year that a $500,000 three-bedroom house was built and sold on her property by accident, Hawaii News Now reported.
Keaau Development Partnership, LLC hired PJ’s Construction to build around a dozen homes on properties the developer bought in a subdivision of the Big Island’s Puna district, the Associated Press reported. The developer is now suing Reynolds and PJ’s Construction, among others involved in the home’s development.
“It would set a dangerous precedent, if you could go on to someone else’s land, build anything you want, and then sue that individual for the value of it,” said James DiPasquale, an attorney for Reynolds.
Reynolds rejected an offer from the developer for a neighboring property to resolve the dispute. She told Hawaii News Now she bought the lot for its “sacredness.”
But Peter Olson, an attorney representing the developer, said the plots are nearly identical after Reynolds declined the offer.
“My client believes [Reynolds is] trying to exploit PJ Construction’s mistake in order to get money from my client and the other parties,” Olson told AP.
In an email, Olson told Fox News his client also found Reynold’s statements about her spiritual connection to the lot to be “disingenuous.”
“My client finds Ms. Reynolds’s statements about her ‘spiritual’ / ‘energy’ connection to the lot in question to be disingenuous, cultural appropriation / culturally insensitive, and offensive,” Olson said.
However, Olson added that his client’s primary claim was with PJ’s Construction. He said under “unjust enrichment,” his client is entitled to recovery “if it conferred a benefit on Ms. Reynolds.”
“The appreciation in the value of her property constitutes a legal benefit to her, and that retention of all that benefit would be unjust because my client spent $300,000 for the construction and Ms. Reynolds got a free house,” Olson said.
But DiPasquale said his client undertook an unnecessary “burden” through this experience.
“Our client, Anne Reynolds, did not ask for this house, nor does she deserve the burden it brings,” DiPasquale told Fox News in a statement. “She’s been thrust into a legal battle through no fault of her own, and we will do everything we can to hold them accountable.”
An attorney for PJ’s Construction told Hawaii News Now the developers didn’t want to hire surveyors for the process, but Olson told Fox News Keaau Development Partnership disputes this claim.
When asked about the squatters, Reynolds’ attorney said it is unclear when they entered the home, or if they are still there.
“There was poop on the floor, in the hallway bathroom and on the toilet seat,” Reynolds told the Post after visiting the trashed home in February. “I was shocked.”
Reynolds told the Post the experience has already taken an emotional toll and made her property taxes skyrocket.
“It’s affected my ability to work,” Reynolds said. “Who can in their right mind have peace? You need to have a peaceful mind in order to work in the kind of job that I do. It’s like a cloud over my head everywhere I go.”
“I’m the one who was injured in this whole fiasco and then after that, they sue me,” she said. “I feel like a criminal. What did I do to deserve this?”
