A Hawaiian property owner was left baffled when a half-million-dollar home was accidentally built on her plot — and the real estate developer slapped her with a lawsuit as the vacant home is being overrun by pooping squatters.
“You already make a mistake, and then you build on my land without my permission. And then now you’re suing me for it,” Annaleine “Anne” Reynolds told The Post about the nightmare ordeal.
“I was so mad. I was so mad that day … that’s a really big mistake to make.”
Now, the three-bedroom, two-bath home in Honolulu’s fastest-growing development zone is running rampant with squatters as Reynolds and the developers remain locked in a legal battle.
The bewildering saga began in 2018 when Reynolds bought the one-acre plot in Puna’s Hawaiian Paradise Park for just $22,500 at a county tax auction.
She planned to move from California to be with her daughter and dreamed of using her new land — located just a mile away from the stunning cliff views of the ocean — to host her meditative healing women’s retreats.
Not only was the parcel in the perfect location, but Reynolds felt a spiritual connection to it.
“I checked all the parameters — north, south, east, west coordinates — and the way that the lot is positioned in relation to the sun rising and setting, how it relates to the stars and my zodiac sign and the zodiac sign of my family and it all aligned. So I was very interested in that property,” Reynolds said.
“I have a deep reverence for the land. And we communicated with the land and offered our respect and she was saying yes, to us.”
But since then, the property has caused nothing but headaches.
Like the rest of the country, Reynolds found her plans stalled by the pandemic and decided to wait in the Golden State for the right time to return to the island.
During that time, a real estate developer had bulldozed the once-vegetation-rich lot to nothing, built a concrete home and sold it to a buyer within just six months — all without Reynold’s knowledge.
She finally learned about the mistake in June of last year, when a real estate broker called and delivered the bad news that he sold the home that was accidentally built on her property for $500,000.
The construction crew was hired by developer Keaau Development Partnership, LLC to build about a dozen homes on properties that the developers bought in the subdivision, Hawaii News Now reported.
An attorney for PJ’s Construction told the outlet the developers didn’t want to hire surveyors for the land, where lots are identified by telephone poles.
The situation quickly became a game of pointing fingers, with Reynolds at the center questioning how neither the developers, construction workers, real estate brokers or local buildings department stepped in before it was too late.
She hired a negotiator to win back her land, shortly before Keaau Development Partnership hit her and everyone else involved with the house’s erection with a lawsuit.
“I did do my due diligence even if I’m the one who was injured in this whole fiasco and then after that, they sue me. I feel like a criminal. What did I do to deserve this? It was super painful,” she said.
“I’m being sued for unjust enrichment if the property stays on my land. It says in the lawsuit that I’m going to be benefiting from your mistake. Well, excuse me, I never wanted it.”
The developers initially tried to sell her the home at a discount or to swap it for the lot next door, both of which she refused — she says she wants her property restored to the way it was before they destroyed it.
Because of the legal lock, the house is sitting vacant and is being overrun with squatters.
Reynolds visited the property in February to find it littered with feces.
“There was poop on the floor. In the hallway bathroom. And on the toilet seat,” she recalled, adding that all the doors were unlocked: “I was shocked.”
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Read More: $500K Hawaiian home built on wrong plot overrun by squatters — as developer sues