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LOCAL NEWS
TuesdayFebruary92010



x45
Harker Heights home built on wrong piece of land
5/5/2009 6:30 PM
By: Brandi Powell

Mills and Jabsen said their home was built on the wrong piece of property.  
Building a home is a big part of the American dream, but sometimes things don't pan out, especially what that dream home is built on the wrong piece of property.

"It's really hard to stay positive for seven kids, when you don't know," Harker Heights homeowner Kindell Mills said in tears. "It breaks my heart to look at it."

Her fiancé, and fellow homeowner, Andy Jabsen said the ordeal made him "sick to my stomach."

Mills and Jabsen said they were all set to move into their newly built home, on their newly purchased property, until they received a phone call one day in November.

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Dream Home on Hold

As News 8's Brandi Powell found out, a family's plans for the future can quickly change, if their dream home is built where it shouldn't have been.



"It was 98 percent complete, and our final survey was being done, and we got the call that it was on the wrong five acres," Mills said.

In Harker Heights the two five-acre pieces of land sit next to each other, one with flat land, and the other with ravines.

"I can remember telling Kindell, you know, 'I wonder who owns 'that,' when actually it was us who owned it," Jabsen said.

Mills said he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"I told the surveyor that he was wrong and that I was going to go get my paper work and that I'd be back," Mills said. "Before I even made it back, he had called and said, 'You're on the wrong property.'"

Andy Jabsen  
The family said the 'For Sale' sign was positioned about 300 feet away from where it should have been, and nobody noticed.

"We asked to see a current survey, and were told by the professionals, we don't need to worry about it until the end survey," Jabsen said.

Jabsen and Mills said lawyers on all sides have been working on an agreement.

"Everything we planned, with the house, with the kids, just went out the window," Jabsen said.

In the meantime, they stop by their new house everyday to get the mail, waiting to hear something.

 
"It's very frustrating, it's very disheartening and discouraging at this point," Mills said.

All they want, the couple said, is to move into the house on the land they were told they owned, and raise their family.

News 8 contacted all parties involved, including realtors, brokers and banks. They either said they couldn't talk about the situation due to litigation, or didn't return phone calls.

The builder, however, said, based on where the 'For Sale' sign was located, and because the lot was so large, there was no question in his mind that they built the home on the correct spot.



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