A Texas household is making ready to launch a authorized battle in opposition to a property developer that secured permits to demolish their household residence final 12 months and construct a duplex on the land the corporate doesn’t legally personal.
In March 2024, Robert Alexander visited his childhood residence at 118 Kimble Lane in Austin to seek out it gone, KVUE reported.
“All the things was nonetheless inside — all of our household heirlooms. All the things was destroyed,” Robert mentioned.
The house belonged to the household matriarch — Julia Alexander — who died in 1979, and Robert’s brother Charles lived there up till final 12 months. However when the household got here up quick on some property taxes, Charles moved out.
“I saved getting letters and issues like that — cellphone calls saying that we had been behind on taxes and we needed to depart, in order that’s why my brother [Charles] left. And instantly after, that home was torn down,” Kelly Alexander mentioned.
Quickly after that discovery, the household visited once more to seek out {that a} developer had cleared the land to interrupt floor for a brand new housing improvement.
Now, of their household residence’s place sits a model new duplex.
KVUE launched an investigation to seek out that public information nonetheless listing Julia and Charles Alexander as house owners at 118 Kimble Lane. The corporate that constructed the duplex, Exact Customized Properties, purchased the lot subsequent to it in 2023.
Although the lot the corporate bought had no listed avenue quantity, the tackle for the duplex it constructed is listed as 120 Kimble Lane on a number of actual property websites, although a part of the property is on the Alexanders’ land.
A building allow search yielded outcomes exhibiting that 120 Kimble had a allow for demolition issued in February 2024, only one month earlier than Robert Alexander visited the land to seek out his residence destroyed.
The tenant renting the unit on the Alexanders’ property mentioned he had no thought what occurred.
“Shock. However to listen to that, , all that is taking place, may be very unlucky,” Joshua Labauve mentioned.
Actual property lawyer Julia Null found that the developer legally bought the lot subsequent to the Alexanders’ land, but the duplex it constructed straddles its lot and the household’s lot.
“It seems that … a developer purchased Lot 9 after which, sadly, pressured the household out for Lot 8, took down their residence, bulldozed it, after which moved into it and truly constructed on it,” Null mentioned.
KVUE tried contacting Exact Customized Properties Director Danny Olivarez a number of instances and was met with no response at first.
When Olivarez lastly responded, he refused to remark and informed the reporter she didn’t have “strong, correct info,” and that “the complainer is making an attempt to get one thing without cost.”
He added that KVUE was “losing time,” claiming the home was “foreclosed” on “within the 70s.”
Olivarez refused to present paperwork to show his claims, however county tax information reveal that no foreclosures course of was ever initiated on the house, and that the household nonetheless owed $15,000 in again taxes.
“After they purchased Lot 9, it very particularly mentioned of their authorized description that it butted as much as Julia Alexander’s property, exhibiting that they didn’t personal that property,” Null mentioned. “So I’m unsure the place the confusion occurred.”
The Alexanders mentioned they’re now making ready to sue Exact Customized Properties for wrongful taking of property.
“Oh, it makes us offended. It makes us very offended,” mentioned Kelly Alexander. “We’re prepared for a combat. We’re the Alexanders.”
