Property Line in the middle of House

[Jordan Black]

Today while searching for new properties in my area I ran across a home that looked to be in the middle of a re-model. It was purchased a year prior at $85,000 and now listed for $34,000, so it grabbed my attention. It definitely needed some more work but comps in the area were a minimum of 135K. The more I dove into the property I found out the house was being sold as QCD and I assumed this was because the owner was in Foreclosure and possibly realized THE PROPERTY LINE WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HOUSE. The home was encroaching the neighboring property lin by more than 28 feet. 

Has anyone every experienced anything like this? if so, how would you go about approaching the property and possibly getting the property lines redrawn?

From what I have gathered, the encroached property owner had both pieces of land at some time or another...

any and all comments appreciated :)
 

[John Teachout]

I've run into a similar situation with an airplane hangar. Originally there was going to be a two acre piece deeded to a non-profit organization but then that amount was changed to one acre. On a subsequent survey (20+ years later) the hangar was centered on the two acre original planned site and the property line of the one acre piece actually deeded over was literally down the center. Fortunately, the original owner of the property still owned the surrounding property and was able to sort it all out.

My guess is that there is something similar going on with this property and that there can be a resolution. It would certainly be worth investigating. But note that the reduced value may be due to some other reason so don't get too distracted by the survey and miss other due diligence items. If there's a septic system or well, make sure that those wind up on the correct property too.