Gotta give him credit, for a basement dweller, Dracula was well-versed in real estate law, and covered all the bases. 
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Where did you read that? It wasn’t in the article I read.
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More editorializing. You don’t know how “nebulous” the agreement was. For all any of us know, it was a thorough verbal agreement, legally a contract, that gave her rights to live there in perpetuity and she’s the one who is being screwed over by having the house sold out from under her.
The old adage is so true - Libertarians believe in the sanctity of contracts right up until the point it’s disadvantageous to them, at which point they want the full weight of government to help them out.
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It seems perfectly plausible to me that an old man nearing the end of his life simply saw a person who needed a place to stay, told her “you can stay in my basement for as long as you want,” and actually meant it without reservation.
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You have offended the almighty Contract! Say 10 Citizens Uniteds, 5 Morgan v Sundance, and contemplate your sins!
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It could be. Whatever his motivation or mindset, he clearly didn’t give much thought to the mess he was leaving his kids (or potentially to himself if the arrangement had gone sour).
You’re assuming his kids deserved not to be left a
mess.
And the article says family, it’s probably safe to assume kids but who knows what family means.
People keep saying that in this thread but, at least as far as the house sale goes, it appears to have worked out just fine for the family. They managed to sell it for a good price and any potential complications with the basement tenant isn’t their problem right now.
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For some reason I’m reminded of the film Knives Out.
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Deserve has nothing to do with it. One way or another, I’m describing the situation of having to sell a house with a stranger living in the basement who can’t easily be evicted.
I can’t imagine it was an easy sell, even in the current real estate bubble that happened to work in their favour. The story wouldn’t making news otherwise.
That’s the real story here: even with a mess like this the American housing market is so distorted that they could sell at a good price.
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It sold four days after being listed, at a price slightly above asking price. Sounds easy enough to me.
Seriously, lots of people on this thread seem to be 100% sure this was a huge problem for the sellers but the available facts seem to indicate otherwise, whether you want to accept that or not.
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This whole topic is speculation. (including my posts)
The guy chose to let someone live in his house. He has no obligation to consider how his actions affect his kids.
As long as we’re speculating, the article says the home was in disrepair, where was his family to help him out?
Maybe he considered the people living in his home family. For all we know the family is the bad guy.
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That’s more a reflection of the grotesquely distorted American housing market, which is the larger story here. It’s the same story that gives rise to articles about dilapidated shacks getting sold for $500k+.
I didn’t say anything about an obligation. And recall, he didn’t name the tenant in the will either because … there was no will.
Serious questions for you: is it wise not to draft a will when one has substantial assets one wants to give to someone (e.g. a valued housekeeper? The kids? A charity? The government?)
Is it wise to generously allow someone to live in your basement but not sign any kind of document asserting you’ve legally allowed the tenancy? Does this put the tenant in a good and stable housing situation at the moment (even with tenant and adverse possession protections)?
Also, do you see a pattern here that might not be compatible with how most societies with strong civil legal systems work?
I haven’t commented about who “deserves” to benefit from his generosity or whether or not he was generous. But it’s not speculation to note that his decision not to write a will or to write up a simple lease to protect him and his tenant was not wise.
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Just a reminder: legally speaking, this is absolutely no different than a property sale where there’s a tenant with no lease who’s renting a room (or even the whole property) month-to-month. And those sales happen all the time. Plenty of tenants stay in a property during the sale from one owner to another.
If the resident refuses to leave when asked by the either the old or new property owner (and nothing in the article indicates that she’s even been asked) the process is identical: first a 30-day written notice, followed by a legal eviction process which may take a couple months.
The only thing than makes this situation unusual, as far as I can tell, is that the previous owner chose not to charge rent. If the listing simply said “basement contains tenant with month-to-month leaseless agreement” this wouldn’t be a story at all.
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There’s also the fact that the previous owner, who verbally allowed the tenancy without considering or memorialising contingencies for himself or his tenant, seems not to have been actively involved in the sale due to his illness.
I’m sure that happens frequently too but it’s always going to be a mess for whichever parties are left holding the bag(s).
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I said early on this is another example of why people need a will or trust, power of attorney, health care directive, and medical power of attorney.
The article said no will or contract but he must have given the family, whoever that might be, some sort of authority to sell on his behalf or maybe just asked them to arrange the sale and he signed the closing documents.
Like I said, all speculation and I was just speculating along with everyone else.
Too bad many stories don’t go past a clicky headline just to get clicks and shares and comments.
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I also find it weird that anyone would offer on a home without seeing the basement, but that’s me. And I know the market is crazy right now, and people are buying sight unseen. But, given how much we discovered after looking over every inch and getting a professional inspection, it seems a recipe for multiple expensive headaches down the road.
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As mentioned, as far as we know, they’re not living there illegally - yet, anyways. But it turns out it’s surprisingly hard to get someone out of a house when they are there illegally, especially during the pandemic:
(The situation was eventually resolved, 15 months later… when the illegal occupant decided to move out. Apparently it wasn’t exactly an unknown situation, either.)
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