Man Returns To Hometown After 5 Years Of Absence, Finds A $1.5-Million House Built On His Land: ‘I Was Shocked’

Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg returned to a plot of land he owned to find something he never expected to see. After much deliberation, Kenigsberg had to involve the police in the situation.

Kenigsberg grew up in the house that his parents bought in 1953. At the time, Kenigsberg was only one year old. However, he moved to Long Island after attending medical school in New York, where he and his wife raised their two children.

Although he had moved away from the town where he grew up, he was fond of the place and even bought a vacant plot of land, which he held onto without building on until recently.

The plot was located just half an acre away from where he grew up and was initially purchased by his father in 1953. Kenigsberg wanted to leave the land to his children, saying he would be happy if his children wanted to live in Connecticut, where he grew up.

In May this year, Kenigsberg received a call to say that his friend was dying living in a hospice in Connecticut. As another friend informed Kenigsberg of the tragedy, they also told him something strange was happening on his plot of land.

For seventy years, the land next door to where Kenigsberg and his family lived had been covered in tall grass and many trees. However, when Kenigsberg returned to the plot five years after he left the last time, he found something far different in the property.

His friend told him the land now had a $1.5 million house erected. The man was shocked as he had never sold the land. He boarded a ferry to see his dying friend and then returned to the plot of land next to which he had grown up.

The home comprised four bedrooms and was nearly complete, despite there not yet being any siding. It spanned three stories and was built right in the middle of the land, which Kenigsberg thought still belonged to him.

Still trying to figure out what to do next, Kenigsberg telephoned his attorney. His attorney began investigating the matter immediately, and what they found was something neither of them had expected for this plot of land. Kenigsnberg said: “I was shocked.”

Kenigsberg’s lawyer found that someone from Johannesburg had impersonated him to sell his property. The 70-year-old lamented:

“I was living my life normally until May 31. and all of a sudden, this happened.”

The person who impersonated Kenigsberg signed over power of attorney to someone in Connecticut to sell the property and the monies paid into the impersonator’s account.

The property was purchased by 51 Sky Top Partners, a firm in Connecticut that buys and sells real estate, for $350,000, and developers began building a house on the property.

Talking about how he felt when he returned to the property and found that the house had been erected, he said:

“I’m angry that so many people were so negligent that this could have happened….It wasn’t for sale… It’s more than obnoxious; it’s offensive and wrong.”

Kenigsberg had often been offered large sums for the property and had always turned it down because he felt so close to the land as it was family property. A lawsuit on the case is now ongoing.

Many people were shocked by the event and hoped Kenigsberg would take occupation of the home and enjoy it. Some even wondered what the people who bought the house were experiencing, as they may have thought they bought it legally.

There was another man who experienced housing woes when he lost his leg building a structure for his family. You can read his story here.