Man Pays $15 For $340,000 Flower Mound Home

You pay. I dont. Whatever your problem is at least read the article before commenting. He is the owner for now unless the original shows up. It says quite clearly that he got the house through 100% legal means yet you spout off big words like "stealing". where does this go?

reply to post by PsykoOps


Dear PsykoOps,

Again he does not own it yet, it is quite simple and you stated it, unless the owner tries to take it back, and that can either be the person on the deed or the bank if it forecloses. Again, address the real issue, do you want to pay for it through your income tax or by losses on your 401k or pension. You say you won't have to pay, I will therefore assume that you do not pay income tax or have a 401k or pension plan. If you have neither and do not pay income tax then you must either be on welfare or unemployment. You are then living off the rest of us and complaining that we didn't give you a free house.

He is not the owner. This was actually covered in depth on the news the other day. The adverse possession requirement is to take, inhabit, use, and improve a property for a long period of time. Here in PA it is 20 years. The length of time varies by state but according to the lawyer on the program no state has a possission requirement shorter than five years.

Additionally, he could actually be jailed. He does not and did not own the property. Therefore he broke into it.

Apparently this is happening in multiple place around the country. Most of the home "takers" are actually renting them out so the renters are paying a landlord who doesn't own the property and then find themselves evicted by the rightful owner.

Adverse possession can work. Last year in PA a couple found out that several acres of land they had in a rural area had been fenced in by a neighbor (who they had asked to keep on eye on the place for them). The neighbor, when they asked via mail correspondance, assured them that everything was fine, no reason to leave their retirment home.

As soon as the date for possession had past. The neighbor filed for adverse possession and got it.
It is my understanding that the original owners had been planning to leave the land to their children.
They had also been paying the taxes on the land faithfully. But a courty upheld the neighbor's possession.

So, it can work, but it takes a long time and I don't expect it to end well for the guy in the story.

reply to post by AQuestion


Yes AQuestion,


This scandal has left many without. The fact is that the squatter did not lose that note as the Lender may have. The squatter did not abandon the house. The squatter is within his full legal right to do as he has done.

Squatter rights stretch back to the old English Common Laws of Chancery.

Something must be done with the property if it is abandoned and no one is laying claim. Eventually, the taxes would accrue anyway; and at a tax sale, the proceeds would go to the next in line lien holder.

It is unfortunate that pension funds were sacked by the fiasco. Who is really to blame? I would say the government for repealing Glass Steagle and allowing private interests to turn mortgages into fancy trading
instruments to begin with. We must maintain a rule of law that keeps things fair for all parties.

Originally posted by ogbert
reply to post by AQuestion

 

Yes AQuestion,


This scandal has left many without. The fact is that the squatter did not lose that note as the Lender may have. The squatter did not abandon the house. The squatter is within his full legal right to do as he has done.

Squatter rights stretch back to the old English Common Laws of Chancery.

Something must be done with the property if it is abandoned and no one is laying claim. Eventually, the taxes would accrue anyway; and at a tax sale, the proceeds would go to the next in line lien holder.

It is unfortunate that pension funds were sacked by the fiasco. Who is really to blame? I would say the government for repealing Glass Steagle and allowing private interests to turn mortgages into fancy trading
instruments to begin with. We must maintain a rule of law that keeps things fair for all parties.

Dear ogbert,

I consider yours to be a very intelligent answer and I am being truthful and not sarcastic. If I may, I would like to respond. Firstly, the squatter is within the law once his time has been completed, until then he is breaking the law by taking a home that he has not paid for. The reason behind adverse possession was to make sure that land did not go to waste. As for blame, all of us. Congress for repealing Glass Steagle and those who bought those homes by lying about how much they made. We can blame the builders, we can blame congress, we can blame the banks, we can blame the lenders, we can blame the buyers, we can blame the people who knew that it was all wrong but enjoyed their homes appreciation, we can blame whoever we want. The question is whether or not it is time to put an end to stupidity and make things right again?

My answer in regards to this squatter is kick him out, rent out the property to someone who will take care of it and put the economy off of the lottery mentality and back on solid footing. I like my answer. Now I will compound it, I would not let lenders bulldoze one more home that sits vacant, I would give them a tax break for selling it to a person with a family and job at a ridiculously low rate as the houses being bulldozed are in areas where it makes no sense to buy. My thoughts and my answers. Be well.

Ok,

The squatter is within his legal right by adversely possessing, as long s he did not break in.

How are you going to determine who gets the rent, when nobody can find the Owner and the Lender may not have the required documents to enact a foreclosure?

I understand your concerns. Foreclosure laws are almost barbaric! I agree that things should be overhauled.

Peace,
Og

Originally posted by ogbert
Ok,

The squatter is within his legal right by adversely possessing, as long s he did not break in.

How are you going to determine who gets the rent, when nobody can find the Owner and the Lender may not have the required documents to enact a foreclosure?

I understand your concerns. Foreclosure laws are almost barbaric! I agree that things should be overhauled.

Peace,
Og

Dear ogbert,

I was a title searcher, finding out who owned the note is easy. If the company went bankrupt it's assets were acquired by it's successor, it's debtors. Problem is that for all the mortgage companies and investors that bought these notes and went bankrupt have so much of this debt that the debtors that acquired the debt have to prioritize which homes they are most concerned about. Some squatters will be successful; but most will not. In either case, you and I will pay for it. What do you want to pay for, that is how we much look at this because one way or another, you and I will be paying for this, not the squatter. We are just buying him a house.

So, in theory, exactly how much will this man end up costing one single tax payer, by living in this house that no one else was living in?
Just, in theory?

reply to post by AQuestion


Man,

We did not buy him a house, we bought him an opportunity that any one of us could have taken advantage of.
The damage was already done by manipulations within the economy. Sadly, we allowed ourselves to be taken by the greed of big guys.

reply to post by ogbert


Dear ogbert,

Yes we are giving him a house and will pay for the loss either through our income tax or losses to our retirements, we are buying that house and giving it to him. The guy that pays for it is us. It doesn't matter that the people who we let control the banks got rich, it is still us paying for the bankers and the squatters. I don't want to pay taxes so that this guy can get a free house and I don't want my pension to lose money so that this guy can get a free house.

reply to post by CodyOutlaw


Dear CodyOutlaw,

How much will it cost each taxpayer, very little. Now how much do you want it to cost and how much do you wish your retirement fund to lose or your taxes go to paying for his house? How many people do you want to get away with this and why are you so willing to pay for any of it?

reply to post by AQuestion



No we paid for a fancy lifestylle for the guys that set this up. That is where the money went. Half the equity probaly went poof too. Who got the benefit of that? We all did by a failed policy.

reply to post by ogbert


Dear ogbert,

Yes, we did pay for their fancy lifestyles and now we will pay for the homes of people who give $16 in return. Heck, if we are going to allow people to have houses for free while we pay for it, shouldn't we at least decide who deserves to have a house for free? How bout homeless families with children, I would rather give them the house than some smart guy who is just looking for a free ride. Tell me how much you as an individual are willing to give up in taxes or the return on your retirement to pay for this loss and then tell me who you want to reap the benefit of our generosity in absorbing the loss.

reply to post by AQuestion


I understand your concerns. There is simply nothing we can do while the laws remain as they do on the books.
There are a lot of victims here. Perhaps if some of the homeless organizations kept a lookout for these types pf opportunities, then a poor person would benefit,, but I doubt they could maintain.

Additionally, the squatter is at risk here. 2% property taxes that he will have to pay are about $500/mo, while that and any maintenance or repairs made will be lost in the event of eviction.
So it's more than $15 to make this work. If he has to continually possess, let's say for 7 years, then he will have $42.000 in taxes alone.

At least the property is being used and benefiting someone.

Unfortunately we have lost much more than taxes alone. I understand that the gov is quibbling over 2 trillion right now, when according to Ron Paul, just one bank received that amount from the Fed.

All the ez money that was floating around to prop this up when the ones doing it knew it would fail. There is where your money went. I was a Real Estate Broker in Florida for over 20 years. I got out at the start of the boom- I was advising everyone to stay out! But, few listened.

Have a good night and thanks for the conversation,
OG

What I am saying is that we did not lose the money because of the squatter. We lost the money by bad practices from the top down.

reply to post by ogbert


Dear ogbert,

I am so happy that you told people to get out of the market when you saw the bubble, I did the same and told people to save their money and not buy, like you, few listened. A year before the crash I actually gave a two day seminar in Las Vegas telling real estate professionals to get out and understand that the market was headed for a crash because of the inverted yield curve and the affordability index not matching the purchases. Pretty obvious.

My real question is not who is to blame, it is how do we make things better and it matters because the longer we wait to fix things, the harder they will be to fix, that is just nature. Peace.

Originally posted by AQuestion

Originally posted by ogbert
reply to post by AQuestion

 

Also, if this guy gets away with it after the statutory amount of continuos, hostile, and notorious possession and pays the taxes along the way, then he has stolen from no one. Both the lender and the owner would have abandoned the property.

Dear ogbert,

I was not referring to the property taxes, I was referring to the Federal Income Tax that you and I pay to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which own 70% of these homes or the investment that you have in your 401K or pension that owns this mortgage because our 401Ks and pensions own the banks. I do not expect this guy to get away with it, I expect him to be kicked out, publicizing it certainly doesn't help his situation.

If Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac lost on investments than our income taxes are used to make up the difference. If the banks lose on their investments then our 401ks and pension funds lose on their investments. In regards to stealing, that is simple, of course he is attempting to steal it, he is not attempting to buy it and he is stealing it from you and me because in the end we will pay for it.

please, break out your calculator and run the numbers.

whats the estimated amount that will be passed along to you for this one house. please come back to reality. im sure he will move out soon anyway when they start burning crosses on his lawn.

reply to post by Question Fate


Dear Question Fate,

You miss my point, it is not about this one guy or this one house. Read the initial responses to the OP, all sorts of people who want to do the same thing. How many people do you want to take homes through adverse possession with the rest of us paying for it? How many people after reading about this man decided to do the same nationwide? How much time and effort will we pay for to have them removed and then there is the cost of repairing the homes and preparing them for sale. We need to look at the bigger picture.

Gosh, if anybody actually read the article, you would see that no mortgage was found. Do you really think Fannie Mae et al. would just let him have the house if they had any legal interest in it?

reply to post by AQuestion


I'm not for my tax dollars being spent on any company that was managed poorly and failed! I do not believe in the whole "to big to fail idea" I'm opposed to throwing money at companies that could not manage what they had....

Dear Government,

I wastedown made some poor choices and failed to properly manage my assets this year. I regret to inform you that I will need some assistance covering the debts I have or I will not be able to continue adding revenue to your tax base! i hope that you understand what this means, without a bailout my family will fail and we have several children to support that makes it to important to fail, the childrens very lives are a stake and they are the future of this great country... I promise to manage this bailout money with much more oversight and repay my debt as soon as possiable!

Regretfully yours,

Wastedown

Do you think they would buy that?

I find it refreshing that this guy found a way to stick it back to the man, all be it temporarly... I bet they will legally boot him but his efforts are admirable to say the least. Now that is not to say I don't see your point as there are pros & cons to everything. But.....

I would rather buy an American citizen who needs it a house with my tax dollars than spen billions just on airconditioning the troops fighting a contrived war any day. Our priorties are effed up as a country... As far as my 401k I dont and will not have one, I invest in actual commodities such as oil and gas, gold, timber, equipment leasing, and real properties through mineral rights... that being said I will proudly say again I would rather pay with my TAX dollars for this man a home than proping up companies that were mismanaged any day! That's how capitalism works.. if your business model doesn't work you don't stay in business period.

This is the curse of envy. When someone else's well-being causes you grief.

I don't see what's so suprising about the envious neighbors. Envy is something almost all people in the world suffer from. They're quick to jump on greed, but never their own envy.