Nevada woman made a simple error in her house paperwork. Now, she's the owner of 85 homes.
Sometimes even a small error can lead to something huge. Such is the story of a woman from Nevada who accidentally bought an entire neighborhood of 85 homes instead of one due to a copy-paste typo in her paperwork. The homeowner who chose to remain anonymous spent $594,481 on what she believed to be one home in Sparks, northeast of Reno, Nevada. However, later while filling out her paperwork with the assessor in Washoe County, she realized that she was now the owner of 84 further properties, as well as two common spaces. Her new properties were estimated to be worth around $50 million meaning she got a lot more than what she had initially planned.
According to the documents, she owns ‘lots one through 85… and Common Areas A and B’ all due to a mistake in her papers. Cori Burke, the chief deputy assessor, said that the issue was in the Westminster Title, which is a full-service title company in Las Vegas. The shocking mistake meant that the home buyer was given the title deeds for tons of other properties too. "It appears Westminster Title out of Las Vegas may have copied and pasted a legal description from another Toll Brothers transfer when preparing (the homebuyer's) deed for recordation, via The Reno Gazette-Journal. Because it was pretty clear a mistake was made, our assessment services division reached out to Westminster Title right away so they could begin working on correcting the chain of title for the 86 properties transferred in error," he added.
Reno real estate agent Janice McElroy later told NewsNation that all of this happened only due to a clerical error. “How is a regular person going to know what the lot number is, and all of the parcel numbers of the property that they’re buying, if they have the incorrect information to match it with? They’re relying on the information that the title company has provided them,” McElroy said
She also explained how only 5% of clients take their time to read all the fine print in the numerous documents necessary for buying a house, as per McElroy. “I have never seen anything this huge of a mistake. But I have seen mistakes happen where water rights have been left off from the transferring of a title. That could be a big deal. If someone doesn’t want to play nice, they may not have to," she added.
While the homeowner could make the process of correcting the mistake difficult, there have been no reports of her refusing to hand the homes back. Burke also said that these issues can happen fairly often however there have been no mistakes that are this big. "This particular case is just a little more interesting because of the number of lots involved," Burke added. "It is cut-and-dry for us, but we only see the recorded documents, not what the title company goes through to get a clear title," Burke said. "However, the title company also has the offer and acceptance for the purchase on file so the intent is pretty clear. "I would think it would be a loser in court and doubt it happens often, if at all," he added, via Daily Mail.
