We Bought The Wrong House....Now What!

[David Wolf]

We recently ran into a very interesting situation. Fortunately, it is resolving itself successfully, but I thought I would share the scenario with the bigger pockets forum so everyone can learn from this. We recently bought half a duplex as a flip and it turned out to be a good deal with good margin. When we went to close as the seller after the rehab the buyers bank noticed that the homes address we were selling did not match up with plot information. It ended up being that some decades ago when they repainted the houses they accidentally switched the house numbers on the duplexes. This was made an even bigger deal after a $15,000 rehab on a property we don't technically own. Fortunately it worked out because the original seller was willing to work with us. When I asked the title company how this could possibly happen, the answer made a lot of sense. Where they were checking the addresses matched the plot. I said we were buying 383 and they said ok. I bought the address we both had planned on buying but that address ended up being the unit she still lived in. Could you imagine if you had an unscrupulous seller that liked the idea of a new property to move into and left you with their improved property? Double check with your title company to ensure the property on the docs matches the physical location you expected it to be in.