# claims of adverse possession for a 2.5 million dollar island? home. FL keys



## Joni

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013...osa-lives-in-2-5-million-house-in-boca-raton/





At 23 years old, most of us were just hoping we could afford our first [URL='http://realestate.aol.com/blog/rentals/']apartment for rent. But that's way below Andre Barbosa's grade. At 23, he's living in a $2.5 million luxury home in the millionaire's enclave of Boca Raton, Fla. -- for free. How? He's squatting in the McMansion.

The five-bedroom gated home is a foreclosure that had been sitting empty for more than a year, according to South Florida's Sun Sentinel newspaper. Property records show that the house was sold to a family for $3.1 million in 2005, but now the rightful owner is Bank of America. The deed on the home states that its value is now $2.5 million. The bank foreclosed on the property in July and shortly thereafter Barbosa moved in, using what's known as a deed of adverse possession. It can allow people to take over an empty property after living there and maintaining it for a certain period of time. According to Florida law, a person can establish ownership of a property if they've been able to live in a home without eviction for seven years while paying property taxes and other costs.

*Gallery: See the Mansion Where Andre Barbosa Lived*
view fullscreen

It's astounding what Barbosa is getting for free -- at least for now. Photos of the home posted on Zillow show a gorgeous mansion with canal views, a stunning curved staircase, marble floors and bathrooms, sweeping open spaces, a top-notch gourmet kitchen, a huge master suite, and balconies. The Sun Sentinel reported that while it's not the only adverse possession case in Palm Beach County in recent years, it involves the most valuable piece of property.

Angry neighbors have called police to the home to remove Barbosa, reported WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, but authorities said that it's a civil matter because it's not clear that Barbosa broke into it. Neighbor Lyn Houston told the Sun Sentinel that she tried to buy the home from Bank of America to save it from lingering in foreclosure and decaying.





"This is a very upsetting thing," Houston told the newspaper. "Last week, I went to Bank of America and asked to see the person in charge of mortgages. I told them, 'I am prepared to buy this house.' They haven't even called me back."

WPEC spoke to other neighbors who had one message for Barbosa: Leave now.

"You're walking into a house, it's crazy. And the point of not being able to get him out is even crazier," one unidentified neighbor told the TV station. "Get out."

"Get a life," another neighbor said when asked what she would say to Barbosa.

Barbosa didn't respond to media requests for comment, but the Sun Sentinel quoted a Bank of America spokeswoman as saying the lender has sent a complaint and eviction notice to the county clerk.

Dubious claims of adverse possession recently have been used with some success by other squatters to take over homes. In Colorado, a couple who had been away from their home for a few months returned to find squatters living in their house. The squatters said a real estate agent had sold them a deed of adverse possession on the home, claiming the property had been abandoned. Even after a lengthy court battle, the squatters were still living there.[/URL]


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## Psi em

I've found a ton of abandoned land in my area but haven't come across a single house worth taking the legal route. 

http://www.wakegov.com/tax/realestate/Documents/2013 Delinq RE Web List.pdf
http://www.wakegov.com/tax/realestate/Documents/2013 Delinq RE Web List.xls


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## Joni

so how did you find the tax information of delinquent or abandoned land?


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## Psi em

The information is public records on the county website. Normally it requires a lot of work to search public records 1 property at a time. Although, these nice, neat and organized lists are buried on the county's web server. No link to them on the website. 

That's okay because search engine spiders/crawlers scan all documents on a server, not just the HTML documents. A lot of organizations seem to forget that files are accessible even when they're not published on a web page. 

A google search can give you links to documents that are supposed to be protected by sloppy PHP programming, server folder permissions, or a IT admin's overconfidence himself.

I got some interesting stuff in my archives that could have me killed.

'As above, so below.'


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## Joni

any special 'way' to enter that you would normally use?

not sure how to word it to figure out what your doing because with one word off in google can totally change the results. i guess examples would help.

-joni


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## Psi em

You're already on the right track. The first time I did this was accident. Every other time was trial and error. 
You gain more clues each time you do it wrong.
It's best to do it wrong on the same server for more relevant clues.

Search: oogle tatas site:.squattheplanet.ogc
Search: oogle teeters site:.squattheplanet.ogc

Search: Ward Transformers xls delinq site:.wakegov.com

Ward Transformers is a tax delinquent entity that no longer exist because they dumped a bunch of pcbs into the land during the 1970s and every property they own is fair game since the abandoned corporate entity is still facing legal litigation. 

For some reason the county abbreviates delinquency with delinq so monkey see, monkey do.

Try to get it in an xls M$ Excel document because those are tiny and easier to manipulate on crappy smartphones/tablets.


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## Matt Derrick

@Joni please make sure to copy and paste the article into your post with a link where it came from. news sites are notorious for their articles going offline a few weeks after their posted.

@Psi em what is 'ogc'? you have it written as squattheplanet.ogc above.


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## Psi em

@Matt Derrick - ogc is just a bit of Lorem Ipsum. I prefer my teeters to be spontaneous rather than on demand.


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## Joni

Matt Derrick said:


> @Joni please make sure to copy and paste the article into your post with a link where it came from. news sites are notorious for their articles going offline a few weeks after their posted.
> 
> @Psi em what is 'ogc'? you have it written as squattheplanet.ogc above.




ohhh i didn't know that. will do for sure next time.


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