Property owner stunned after $500,000 house built on wrong lot: ‘Are you kidding me?’

HONOLULU (KHNL/Gray News) - A construction company has reportedly built a half-million-dollar house on the wrong property.

Hawaii News Now reports that the lot owner doesn’t want the house and has endured problems like higher taxes and squatters.

Now, to add insult to injury, she’s being sued over someone else’s mistake.

The still vacant three-bedroom, two-bath house on a 1-acre lot in Puna’s Hawaiian Paradise Park is worth about $500,000. But it could cost a lot of people more than that as they head to court to sort it out.

It all started in 2018 when Annaleine “Anne” Reynolds thought she’d found the perfect, serene parcel in Paradise Park to host her meditative healing women’s retreats.

“There’s a sacredness to it and the one that I chose to buy had all the right qualities,” she said.

The price was also right — available in a county tax auction for about $22,500.

But while she waited in California through the pandemic for the right time to use it, the lot was bulldozed, and a house was built on the property.

She was unaware of the construction until she got a call last year from a real estate broker who had learned of the mistake.

“He told me, ‘I just sold the house, and it happens to be on your property. So, we need to resolve this,’” Reynolds said. “And I was like, what? Are you kidding me?”

PJ’s Construction was reportedly hired by developer Keaau Development Partnership to build about a dozen homes on properties that developers bought in the subdivision, where the lots are identified by telephone poles.

An attorney for PJ’s Construction said the developers didn’t want to hire surveyors.

Honolulu attorney James DiPasquale was hired by Reynolds when she was sued along with everyone associated with the property or construction.

“There’s a lot of fingers being pointed between the developer and the contractor and some subs,” DiPasquale said.

Because it can’t be sold, the house has become a nightmare for Reynolds. A neighbor told Hawaii News Now that squatters were immediately attracted to the brand-new vacant house.

“Before they put the fence on the property there were people coming, looking inside,” he said.

Reynolds said she discovered they’d done more than just look, as she found feces inside the house when checking the property.

“It was so disgusting,” she said.

Along with the cost of fencing, Reynolds said she’s paying property taxes that went from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.

The developers have tried to settle the issue.

Reynold’s attorney said they offered to swap her their lot right next door or sell her the house at a discount.

But she has refused both offers.

“It would set a dangerous precedent if you could go onto someone else’s land, build anything you want, and then sue that individual for the value of it,” DiPasquale said.

After trying to resolve the problem, Keaau Development Partnership sued PJ’s Construction, the architect, the prior property owner’s family, and the county, which approved the permits.

“It’s awful. It’s awful,” she said.

Representatives of the developers and construction company and Reynolds all said they are being reasonable, and the others aren’t. That’s why the developer says they have pulled everyone into the lawsuit in hopes a judge can help unravel this half-million-dollar mistake.

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