Dibbs

There was an interesting story on the news this week about a homeowner who discovered that someone had moved into their vacant home claiming that the home had been abandoned.  The new occupant said she rented the property from a property management company who in turn claimed that they had acquired the property by filing a "deed of adverse possession" with the county recorders office.  Pretty good trick if you can pull it off.  Last I checked there were a couple of elements of adverse possession that I suspect this property manager may have forgotten. As a refresher, adverse possession is a means of acquiring title where an occupant has been in actual, open, notorious, and continuous occupancy of a property under a claim of right for the required statutory period.  In this case the period would be 7 years.   The property manager is 6 years 12 months short of the requirement.   Since a real estate license is required to manage property here in Washington it makes me wonder how some people actually pass the license test in the first place but that is another story.  

The property owner, in my opinion, was quite gracious to the occupant allowing her and her family to move out over the weekend.  I have heard that similar claims to vacant property been happening in other parts of the country but this is the first time I have heard about it here.  If you have seen this in your market I would love to hear about it.  Part of my initial reaction is that consumers could be protected against becoming entangled in this sort of mess by using trusted real estate professionals except that in this case the renter thought that is what they were doing.

This reminds me of a transaction I worked on a number of years ago where a man rented a home from one of my clients and then proceeded to offer it "for sale by owner" at a drastically reduced price drawing in several buyers and obtained cash earnest money deposits before fleeing town cash in hand.  The would be buyers then contacted my client to get a refund.  The problem is my client did not sell the home.  Tough luck for the buyers.  The moral of the story here is to know who you are dealing with.  As a consumer remember that true authority withstands questioning.  As a broker I always determine if in fact my client has the legal right to sell, or in this case, rent the home.  As a consumer or selling/leasing agent, you can do the same.  To do this simply review the tax records to see if the person claiming the right to sell or rent is the person in title.  If the home is for sale ask for a copy of the preliminary title.  Verify that your agent is a member in good standing with the Association of Realtors and check the status of their license.  In many states you can do this in a few seconds online.  Sorry, no "Dibbs" today.