Hawaii home mistakenly built on Bay Area woman's land to be torn down

The title almost makes it sound like the house was mistakenly built in the bay area instead of Hawaii.

Unless I miss something, having this type of local news on the Hacker News homepage is surprising.<p>IMHO, it falls under the category of &quot;boat programming&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;14486&#x2F;174092" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;14486&#x2F;174092</a>). That is, it is only thanks to the &quot;Bay Area woman&quot; that it grabbed some attention of the Bay Area-affiliated crowd (if it was a &quot;Budapest woman&quot;, it would be treated, factfully, as local news).<p>In particular, it falls short of the HN guidelines of &quot;anything that gratifies one&#x27;s intellectual curiosity&quot;.

Reasonable parties would have found a way to come to an amicable agreement that wouldn’t have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of value, like exchanging lands and offering compensation.<p>Edit: changed dollar value, thanks Ballas for correcting me

&gt; Reynolds was in for yet another unwelcome surprise: The developer sued her for being “unjustly enriched” by the construction of the home on her land. The developers’ lawyer told SFGATE in March that Reynolds appeared to be taking advantage of the developer’s mistake. “Keaau Development Partnership is the only entity that has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses,” Peter Olson said. “She’s trying to exploit the situation to get money from my client and the other parties.”<p>Can you imagine if this had worked? If someone could screw up so badly as to build an <i>entire house</i> on land they had no authorization to build on, and sue the <i>owner</i> of that land? Who didn&#x27;t even know it was happening until it was over?<p>I can think of a long line of people the builder might have a case against here, but suing someone with the argument, &quot;I unjustly enriched you. Give me money,&quot; is the most ridiculous thing I&#x27;ve heard in awhile.<p>Just imagine the precedent.

I&#x27;m reminded of the old saying &quot;Measure twice, build entire friggin house once.&quot;

&gt; “Mr. Lawrence testified he built the home on Lot 114 instead of Lot 115 because he counted out the lots using the telephone poles,” the court order read. “But he built the home on the wrong side of the telephone pole.”<p>Had he been a programmer he would know to count from 0 :)

This scenario happens far more often than most people realise, putting up a building on the wrong plot of land. If you are not going to do your due diligence then you will suffer the consequences.<p>If you build on the wrong plot, the only person to blame is yourself.

I remember looking at a farm property in NC. After walking the entire farm I noticed that someone had built a home on the wrong side of a creek on the farmland, instead of the other side of the creek on the land they actually owned. I notified the sellers who after talking to the county found out I was correct. They ended up having to change the lot lines. We ended up not buying the property due to other reasons. It is truly amazing to me that things like this get past the banks and county inspectors. The lack of due diligence is astounding.

&gt;But the judge rejected a request that the land be restored to its original condition.<p>from<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hawaiinewsnow.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;hawaii-island-judge-orders-demolition-500000-house-built-wrong-lot&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hawaiinewsnow.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;hawaii-island-judge...</a><p>I think that is a shame and Reynold will get justice in the next trail. To me, the land should be restored to what it was before the work began.

Lehto&#x27;s Law discussed this <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ntxd2jsszi0&amp;pp=ygULbGVodG8ncyBsYXc%3D" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ntxd2jsszi0&amp;pp=ygULbGVodG8nc...</a><p>The builder didn&#x27;t help himself by suing everyone before trying to work it out.