A comedy of errors…dream come true or worst nightmare?

Earlier in October I posted on Facebook a link to a great story out of Flagler County, Florida “A comedy of errors…an attorney’s dream, and the perfect opportunity to engage a Mediator. Unbelievable all this was built in 6 months and alas…on the WRONG lot!!!” The story, a debacle in a community called Hammock Dunes regarding a 5,000 + square foot custom, beachside home built on the wrong lot.

I came upon another “oopsie” real estate transaction in Canada which occurred just this past summer, preceding the Hammock Dunes calamity.

In Moncton, Canada (in the beautiful Canadian Maritimes) a couple was excited to make a land purchase with the hope of building their first home on the parcel. They hired both a real estate company as well as an Attorney thinking they’ve done their due diligence. Unfortunately the couple soon discovered the real estate agent sold them a plot of land that wasn’t the piece of property they intended on buying. Additionally the property had already had belonged to someone else!

The real estate company states multiple defenses such as the “For Sale” sign was placed on the wrong piece of property and that the previous owner of the land had “misled” them. All good defenses but in the end the big mistake was that no survey had been conducted.

The irony between the Hammock Dunes case and the Moncton case is that in the Hammock Dunes case a survey had been conducted and the builders are using that to their defense… that sometimes surveys can be incorrect. I say in this day and age of GPS, can’t we do better???