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https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-home-built-on-wrong-lot-19371615.php
The home that was built in Hawaii on a plot owned by Anne Reynolds, who lives in the Bay Area.
Anne Reynolds/Courtesy
By Andrew Chamings
March 28,2024
In 2018, Anne Reynolds bought an acre of empty green land where the stars aligned on Hawaii’s Big Island. She had plans to one day build a healing retreat for women there. Then, someone accidentally built a house on it.
The bizarre story, which involves a construction crew building a three-bedroom family home on the wrong plot of land, has resulted in high emotions, recriminations, and now a court case in which the developers are suing nearly everyone involved.
“It’s terrible. I felt like I wanted to cry,” Reynolds told SFGATE. “There is this house on my land, and it’s not mine.”
A lawyer for the developer, however, argues that the development company is the only party to have sustained monetary losses in the ordeal.
Reynolds, a relationship coach and energy healer from Concord, California, was persuaded to buy the land in Hawaiian Paradise Peak by her daughter, who lives in Hawaii. As a big believer in numerology and astrology, Reynolds said the spot was the perfect match for her plans.
“I believe in the sacredness and the sanctity of the land,” Reynolds said. “The coordinates aligned with my zodiac sign. And you could hear the ocean.”
The pandemic stalled Reynolds’ plan to build the retreat on the plot she had bought at a county tax auction for about $22,500. During this period, she says she received letters in the mail from a developer offering to buy the land, which she ignored.
Then, one day last June, just as Reynolds was about to meditate, she said she got an unusual call from a real estate agent in Hawaii. “We sold a house,” Reynolds recalled the man saying. “We sold a house that happens to be on your land. You need to resolve this.”
Reynolds was stunned and confused, and said she told the man to remove the house from her property.
She soon found out that a building company named PJ’s Construction was hired by a developer named Keaau Development Partnership to build homes on the tract. The crew was supposed to build the home on parcel 115, but somehow ended up on Reynold’s plot, 114, next door. What’s more, the newly constructed house had been sold.
It’s unclear exactly how the builders bulldozed and built on the wrong lot; Reynolds said she believes it may have been due to them miscounting the number of telephone poles on the street and not using a surveyor. A lawyer for PJ’s Construction told Hawaii News Now that developer “didn’t want to hire surveyors.” Keaau Development’s lawyer, Peter Olson, told SFGATE that this was not true.
“Best efforts were made to ensure that the home was built on the correct property,” said a letter co-signed by PJ’s Construction and Keaau Development sent to Reynolds and reviewed by SFGATE. “The home was not maliciously built on parcel 114.”
The mistake was only realized toward the end of the sale of the property in the summer of 2023 when the title company was trying to close escrow. The discovery nullified the sale by the developer, which never owned the land in the first place. An MLS listing for the home that was priced at $499,000 has since been taken down.
The ordeal was only about to get worse for Reynolds, who says squatters moved into the empty home.
“There was poop in the toilet. Not only inside the toilet, but on the toilet seat,” Reynolds said of when she first visited the house last month. She alleges the back door wasn’t locked. “The house was screaming, ‘Rob and vandalize me.’”
Reynolds said her property taxes more than doubled due to the increased value of the land. She said she hired an attorney “well versed on the art of feminine negotiation,” and was expecting to receive an offer from the developer, but the conflict only escalated. In a final twist that even Reynolds didn’t see coming, the developer is now suing her. In a civil case filed on Jan. 30, the developer alleges Reynolds was “unjustly enriched” by the construction of a home on her land and should pay them back.
Reynolds said Keaau Development offered “any other plot of land” on the street in exchange for hers, but she turned them down. Olson confirmed she rejected the offer of an identical lot. “Her demands weren’t reasonable,” he said.
“It’s an extremely frivolous, baseless lawsuit, and we are seeking damages,” Reynolds’ attorney James DiPasquale told SFGATE. “It’s just pure bullying.”
“It feels like a big injustice,” Reynolds said. “They make a mistake, and they’re suing me for their mistake.”
The developers’ lawyer, however, said that Reynolds appears to be taking advantage of the mistake. “This is not bullying,” Olson said. “Keaau Development Partnership is the the only entity that has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses. She’s trying to exploit the situation to get money from my client and the other parties.”
“The property has increased in value over hundreds of thousands of dollars without having her pay a penny for it,” he added.
Keaau Development is also suing almost everyone involved in the mistake, including the construction crew, the architect, the county and even the previous owner of the land Reynolds bought. The developer alleges that after paying PJ’s Construction about $300,000 to build the home, the owner of the company “materially breached the contract by constructing a house on the wrong lot,” and failed to “conduct his due diligence in locating lot 115.”
Reynolds isn’t sure whether her dream of building a women’s healing retreat on the lot will ever materialize.
“This house is just there, like a cloud following me around,” Reynolds said. “And it keeps raining on me.”
'I wanted to cry': Bay Area woman stunned after Hawaii home built on wrong lot
The home that was built in Hawaii on a plot owned by Anne Reynolds, who lives in the Bay Area.
Anne Reynolds/Courtesy
By Andrew Chamings
March 28,2024
In 2018, Anne Reynolds bought an acre of empty green land where the stars aligned on Hawaii’s Big Island. She had plans to one day build a healing retreat for women there. Then, someone accidentally built a house on it.
The bizarre story, which involves a construction crew building a three-bedroom family home on the wrong plot of land, has resulted in high emotions, recriminations, and now a court case in which the developers are suing nearly everyone involved.
“It’s terrible. I felt like I wanted to cry,” Reynolds told SFGATE. “There is this house on my land, and it’s not mine.”
A lawyer for the developer, however, argues that the development company is the only party to have sustained monetary losses in the ordeal.
Reynolds, a relationship coach and energy healer from Concord, California, was persuaded to buy the land in Hawaiian Paradise Peak by her daughter, who lives in Hawaii. As a big believer in numerology and astrology, Reynolds said the spot was the perfect match for her plans.
“I believe in the sacredness and the sanctity of the land,” Reynolds said. “The coordinates aligned with my zodiac sign. And you could hear the ocean.”
The pandemic stalled Reynolds’ plan to build the retreat on the plot she had bought at a county tax auction for about $22,500. During this period, she says she received letters in the mail from a developer offering to buy the land, which she ignored.
Then, one day last June, just as Reynolds was about to meditate, she said she got an unusual call from a real estate agent in Hawaii. “We sold a house,” Reynolds recalled the man saying. “We sold a house that happens to be on your land. You need to resolve this.”
Reynolds was stunned and confused, and said she told the man to remove the house from her property.
She soon found out that a building company named PJ’s Construction was hired by a developer named Keaau Development Partnership to build homes on the tract. The crew was supposed to build the home on parcel 115, but somehow ended up on Reynold’s plot, 114, next door. What’s more, the newly constructed house had been sold.
It’s unclear exactly how the builders bulldozed and built on the wrong lot; Reynolds said she believes it may have been due to them miscounting the number of telephone poles on the street and not using a surveyor. A lawyer for PJ’s Construction told Hawaii News Now that developer “didn’t want to hire surveyors.” Keaau Development’s lawyer, Peter Olson, told SFGATE that this was not true.
“Best efforts were made to ensure that the home was built on the correct property,” said a letter co-signed by PJ’s Construction and Keaau Development sent to Reynolds and reviewed by SFGATE. “The home was not maliciously built on parcel 114.”
The mistake was only realized toward the end of the sale of the property in the summer of 2023 when the title company was trying to close escrow. The discovery nullified the sale by the developer, which never owned the land in the first place. An MLS listing for the home that was priced at $499,000 has since been taken down.
The ordeal was only about to get worse for Reynolds, who says squatters moved into the empty home.
“There was poop in the toilet. Not only inside the toilet, but on the toilet seat,” Reynolds said of when she first visited the house last month. She alleges the back door wasn’t locked. “The house was screaming, ‘Rob and vandalize me.’”
Reynolds said her property taxes more than doubled due to the increased value of the land. She said she hired an attorney “well versed on the art of feminine negotiation,” and was expecting to receive an offer from the developer, but the conflict only escalated. In a final twist that even Reynolds didn’t see coming, the developer is now suing her. In a civil case filed on Jan. 30, the developer alleges Reynolds was “unjustly enriched” by the construction of a home on her land and should pay them back.
Reynolds said Keaau Development offered “any other plot of land” on the street in exchange for hers, but she turned them down. Olson confirmed she rejected the offer of an identical lot. “Her demands weren’t reasonable,” he said.
“It’s an extremely frivolous, baseless lawsuit, and we are seeking damages,” Reynolds’ attorney James DiPasquale told SFGATE. “It’s just pure bullying.”
“It feels like a big injustice,” Reynolds said. “They make a mistake, and they’re suing me for their mistake.”
The developers’ lawyer, however, said that Reynolds appears to be taking advantage of the mistake. “This is not bullying,” Olson said. “Keaau Development Partnership is the the only entity that has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses. She’s trying to exploit the situation to get money from my client and the other parties.”
“The property has increased in value over hundreds of thousands of dollars without having her pay a penny for it,” he added.
Keaau Development is also suing almost everyone involved in the mistake, including the construction crew, the architect, the county and even the previous owner of the land Reynolds bought. The developer alleges that after paying PJ’s Construction about $300,000 to build the home, the owner of the company “materially breached the contract by constructing a house on the wrong lot,” and failed to “conduct his due diligence in locating lot 115.”
Reynolds isn’t sure whether her dream of building a women’s healing retreat on the lot will ever materialize.
“This house is just there, like a cloud following me around,” Reynolds said. “And it keeps raining on me.”
