Condo Owner Discovers He Lives and and Rehabbed the WRONG UNIT!

Yikes! This is not exactly an association-related story, but it jumped out at me anyway.

Condo owner finds out he's been living and renovating in the wrong unit

Heidi Hemmat KDVR Denver

March 5, 2009

DENVER - He bought his first home, spent $30,000 fixing it up, and now, six months later, Jonathon Kyte has learned the home doesn't belong to him.

According to the City and County of Denver, Jonathon owns the dump next door. He found out about the mistake almost by accident when he received a map which showed the unit he's living is actually unit No. 4.

"I froze. My wife and I were just speechless," Kyte said.

Kyte owns the deed and title to unit No. 5.

Jonathon blames the Coldwell Banker listing agent for the mistake. She marketed the property and provided the key to the unit Jonathon and wife have been living in.

He called the listing agent again and again, but she wouldn't return his calls. He also called the title company, "Colorado American Title," and an employee promised to get back to him, but never did.

So Jonathon called FOX 31 News. We confronted the listing agent's supervisor, but he would not comment on camera. He said their lawyers were looking into the situation.

Jonathon is now considered a squatter in unit No. 4, and the people who were so willing to sell it to him, are now unwilling to help.

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What a shock to discover! I would say, even though it's technically not the Condo Board's role, I would try to enlist their assistance, too!

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-wrongcondo-030509,0,6904039.story

I find it odd that there was nothing in the closing docs stating he was purchasing unit #5 instead of unit #4. The unit number should certainly be on the deed. And, what about the address? If the street address is the same for all units, then the unit number would definitely be shown; otherwise the street address would be different for each unit. I wonder if the realtor was the listing agent for both units.

Am I (and many of you here) the ONLY ONE who actually READ EVERY WORD when we bought our home? I even got the association information, and I read every word there, too! Jeeez...our company had a typo on the TOTAL PRICE OF OUR HOME!!!!

Legal contracts...why on earth is someone just going to say "Oh, ok, you wonderful expert who has such an attention to detail, where do I sign?"

Title insurance?

I have been following this case as it has made T.V a couple of times as well. As several of us have asked, where is the Title Insurance company here. Why cannot they make some sort of an agreement with the documented owner? How about the agent and her company because the agent really screwed this up. The last I heard, he was being evicted from the unit and he was out his $30,000. This is a true excercise in making sure that you have inspected any closing papers as a buyer. But supposidly there was no unit numbers on either door so it was an accident waiting to happen.

SusanS,

Yes they covered the article that was o the news recently but this case has been going on for several months already. Will HOATALK continue to cover it?? Dunno!