A California couple who thought they were buying their dream home, ended up in a real-life nightmare after the old owner refused to move and is still living there over a year since the transaction.
On January 31, 2020, Tracie and Myles Albert put down money on a beautiful four-bedroom home in Riverside, California, but over a year since, they are still unable to move in, because the former owner refuses to leave. The man collected the asking price of $560,000, but after the contract was signed, he refused to turn over the keys and move out. Although the Alberts have tried appealing to the authorities, a California moratorium prevents evictions during the Covid-19 epidemic, so there’s nothing anyone can do.
Photo: Fox11
“We own the house outright. That’s our house and it’s all in a contract, written, legal, done,” Myles Albert told FOX11. “He’s been paid the money in his account. How could we have no rights to go into our home?”
The couple’s real-estate agent told reporters that the former owner called him on a Sunday last winter, asking for $560,000 for his house in two weeks time, which basically meant that he wanted cash. Tracie and Myles used all their life savings and took out a loan to close the deal, but even after signing the contract things didn’t work out the way they had expected.
The only reason something like this is possible is because California has a moratorium on evictions, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the former owner is simply taking advantage of that. Authorities have recently extended that moratorium until June 30, so the couple still has some waiting to do.
Photo: Tierra Mallorca/Unsplash
“It’s genuinely unfathomable to me that we live in a state where something like this is even possible,” Chris Taylor, the Real Estate Agent who sold the house to the Alberts, said. “They closed escrow on this home January 31, 2020. “They have this case under a COVID tenant situation, of no evictions when it doesn’t fall under that at all. This transaction went through in January 2020 before any of that, it isn’t a renter who was getting thrown out. It’s the guy who collected all of this money.”
To make matters worse, because he now longer owns the property, the former owner has lost all interest in maintain the property, but he won’t allow the new owners to do it either. Tracie Alberts said she tried to water lawn to keep it from dying, but the former owner wouldn’t let her.
“I tried watering the lawn one time and he came out and ripped my sprinkler lines, ripped all the wires,” the woman said. “The Palm trees are dying, everything was beautiful and everything is dying.”
Apparently, this case is not one-of-a-kind. Eviction Attorney Dennis Block told Fox 11 that his firm has handled 7 0r 8 such cases this year alone. I guess there are a lot of scumbags in the world, huh?
