I’m glad at least one person caught the reverse double-entendre. 
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Seems like the winner of the auction, and the writer of the source article are pretty unfamiliar with the caveats of tax default auctions. There are several “lots” like this listed in the San Francisco default auctions. I once saw a 4’ x 4’ plot on auction that was located at the intersection of four fenced off backyards. There’s some crazy stuff out there.
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The buyer thought he was buying the “villa” next to the property, which is valued at $200,000; apparently so did the other bidders in the auction, who bid up the strip of grass to $9100.
So… they thought they were getting a $200,000 house at a 95% off discount? Uh… I don’t know where to start with that.
Yeah, I started reading it, thought, “Surely it doesn’t go under the buildings?” because that would cause a lot of problems… but, if it goes the depth of the two properties, it does seem like the two garages straddle it, at least. I guess he has the home-owners over a barrel, then, which is rather awful. I wonder if the home-owners realized what was going on? Because it seems like it would be in their interests to buy it up, even when the prices got ridiculous.
A shitty situation all around, I guess. The county could have resolved this a lot better.
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They need to buy this back from the poor bidder. “Caveat Emptor” only goes so far. If you intentionally or neglectfully misrepresent what’s for sale, you can’t blame the bidder after the fact. Even if it is a real estate auction. Especially if you’re the city, who should know better than anyone what plots are where.
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At 12" wide whatever entertainers you hire had better be quite slim, with small feet.
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See also!
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I thought headlines for all stories like this began with the words, “Florida Man…”
The whole auction was ridiculous, and even the state employees realized it. What I don’t understand is why not reach out to the homeowners and offer to just sell them the land for the accessed value of $50.
I guess the state did get more money from the sale this way, but that’s all going to be wasted in fighting lawsuits.
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My internet whims are rarely practical. 
- I missed that it was 12" to be honest. I was thinking it was shoulder width.
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Nah, it needs to be at least three times bigger for that.
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A Trump-worthy real estate deal.
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Pave it and open a motorcycles only parking lot.
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It would seem to be in the best interests of the homeowners to split the costs and reimburse the buyer for the property (and have a contract drawn up for split ownership of this skinny 3rd parcel). If they push too hard, I could see a disgruntled strip owner demanding that they remove encroaching structures, forcing them to split and re-wall what appears to be a duplex.
Seems perfect for a shooting range so long as you are a good shot. And Florida has a stand your ground law that should allow shooting to take down that invading house wall. What could go wrong… it’s Florida?
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I have not researched this, which is unlike me, and might be due to lingering PTSD from an especially heinous property question on the bar exam. So this is total speculation, but it might make sense to rescind the contract on the grounds of “unilateral mistake,” since it seems clear the buyer had no idea what he was actually getting into, and that is at least partly the county’s fault.
Yup, that might be the sensible way out but it’s not legally ‘correct’.
It’s an auction. The law on those is pretty clear in every common law jurisdiction given that’s how property has been sold since time immemorial.
Pretty much anything that could go wrong and be litigated over already has been.
Auctions are pretty much where “caveat emptor” or “buyer beware” comes from.
You buy at an auction, it’s your job to do the due diligence - whether the auctioneer tells you that you should or not.
But they didn’t do that. They gave him all the information he needed to know what the lot was and decide whether he wanted to bid and how much.
If they had given him more information, he might have a get out.
But he decided to buy it without doing the due diligence which he had the chance to do and it turned out not to be what he thought it was - that’s not a ‘mistake’ which entitles him to rescind or void the contract. That’s just him being stupid (and greedy).
In this case, he’s ‘lucky’ in that the seller is a political entity. They might agree to reverse the sale to avoid bad publicity but I don’t think he’s got a leg to stand on legally - and rightly so.
Adverse possession might also be a possibility, if the villa owners have been there long enough. Presumably somebody’s been mowing the grass, thus exercising open and obvious control over that part of the one-foot-wide domain. If that argument works, then the county had nothing to sell in the first place and the strip would effectively have been merged into the larger properties. Everybody could then pretend this never happened.
That might work. The owner of 8109 only appears to have owned their property since 2012/2013 though. And 8017 appear to have owned it since 2011/2012.
So unless they can track down the previous owners, evidence of lawn mowing, etc. for a sufficient period might be difficult.
Also is lawn moving going to be enough? Is that ‘to the exclusion of all others’? It can be, but in this case? What if both neighbours mowed the lawn on occasion?
I’m intrigued by what seems to be some sort of access hatch (just where the red arrow is helpfully pointing). If that’s a sewerage inspection chamber or something, the neighbouring owners could be in bit more trouble than they think (although you’d think they’d have easements covering access, right to have pipes passing through, etc. in that case).
The state doesn’t get to keep the surplus (well, not permanently). Anyone else the delinquent former owner owes money to can claim their share and if there’s any left the former owner or in this case its administrators can claim the funds.
I suppose that might be the state if the company just dissolved without formal liquidation procedures.
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Yeah, it looks like you’re right. When I looked at the parcel information, there are a lot of things that should make a potential buyer uncertain about what’s actually for sale. I still think the county should cancel or reverse the sale, though. There’s no point to burning this guy just because they can.
The property extends 100 feet, which would be well into the garage and likely into the houses or at least the yards beyond. If those yards have fences (that don’t have a 1’ gap between them) then that would affect adverse possession. My limited recollection of adverse possession usually involved someone wanting a piece of property and claiming that their use or improvements justified their possession, but I wonder if there’s ever been a forced adverse possession case, where the user of a piece of property was forced to possess it despite not wanting it.
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True, the bits that are under the buildings and in the back yards might be easier to get an adverse possession claim through on but I think that might be scuppered by the fact that the owner of the strip was the developer who built the houses (and presumably put up the fences initially).
Therefore occupation of the strip by the houses and the fences would by definition be with the permission of the land owner. Therefore no adverse possession.
I’ve never come across that but I suppose technically under the common law, adverse possession is not something that anyone needs to do anything to obtain in the sense of going to court, etc. It just happens automatically if you do certain things for long enough without the owner kicking you out.
Any applications are just to sort the paper title out but the legal/equitable ownership transfers when the required elements are satisfied.
So I suppose a court could say - “You people did these things, therefore you now own the land. You don’t want it? Tough.”
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The new owner should now build a fence on his new strip - through the house. He should also claim that he needs to dig it up for some reason - that’ll get the house owners attention…
