When you have a home in a neighborhood that you love, you never want things to change.
What would you do if one neighbor passed away and their daughter was trying to sell an empty lot to a developer?
That is what happened to the couple in this story, so they plotted with another neighbor to help keep the property undeveloped.
Let’s read all the details.
My parents live in a nice, quiet neighborhood.
For the most part, everyone gets along well and the neighborhood exists in its own little bubble; the only time you see people from outside the neighborhood bubble is on Halloween.
Good neighbors are so important.
Our backyard neighbor, a single, middle aged woman who we’ll call Sally, was kind of adopted by our family and came to all holiday parties and family get togethers.
We all love her and that made our revenge all the more satisfying.
Sally had a next door neighbor who owned a lot between Sally’s house and her own.
This works out well for everyone.
When the neighbor expressed an interest in selling the lot, Sally offered to purchase it and a deal was made.
Unfortunately, Sally’s neighbor died prior to the land deal being finalized and the lot went into her assets to be distributed to her only daughter – who we will call Jane.
Jane disliked Sally and refused to sell the empty lot to her because she believed Sally had been attempting to screw her mother over.
Jane claimed she was going to sell it to an interested developer who would build a house there.
When my parents heard this, they were upset; our house was on a hill and the empty lot also ran up to our backyard.
I certainly don’t blame them.
My parents did not want to look down into another house/backyard.
Likewise, Sally did not want a house next to her so she tried one last time to purchase the lot.
She offered more than she had originally planned on paying, but Jane said she would never sell the lot to her.
My parents and Sally hatched a plan, though.
My parents, whom Jane did not know, had an attorney draft a purchase offer for the empty lot.
They offered several thousand less than Sally’s original offer had been.
Jane hemmed and hawed, but came back with a counter offer equivalent to Sally’s original offer.
She must have really hated Sally to give up $5000.
My parents offered her five thousand less and she accepted.
After the sale was finalized, my parents sold the lot to Sally for the same price they purchased it; Sally ended up receiving the lot for five thousand less than she had originally agreed to pay (and over ten thousand less than what she offered to Jane).
Jane did find out what happened and tried to negate the contract with my parents on account of “fraud” but that’s obviously not a legitimate claim.
Jane never spoke to Sally, or to my parents, after she learned what happened.
Even better!
Another interesting tidbit – after purchasing the lot, my parents notified the town of their intent to not develop the property so nobody can ever build a single family dwelling on it.
Killed two birds with one stone – no downhill neighbor and the property stays in the “family.”
Good for them, I would assume it was a hassle to deal with the paperwork and taxes, so it was really nice to do it.
Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say.
I wonder if they could have proven this?
I think this type of thing happens regularly.
Good question.
This doesn’t make sense to me either.
Yeah, Jane must have really hated her.
Neighbors need to work together.
If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.