This is one hell of a way to meet the new neighbors. :eek:
What gets me is the keystone cops that arrested and charged them. I hope this couple has a good lawyer and sues the crap out of the neighbor and the cops. I wonder if charges can be filed against the neighbor for threatening them and pointing a gun?
Who the heck walks around with their real estate papers? I certainly didn’t 24 years ago when I bought my house. I was given keys to my new house. That’s what proved I had every right to be on my new property. All my real estate and mortgage paperwork were in my safe deposit box at my bank.
It seems like the man’s wife spoke very good English. There shouldn’t have been any problem explaining things to the cops that first responded to the 911.
If I was the Kalonji’s I sure wouldn’t want that house NOW, knowing what kind of neighbors I’d have. I’d be exploring ways to back out of the deal, if at all possible.
Oh, and suing the armed neighbors who confronted them.
“Hey, man. Remember that time when I held a gun to you and your wife and got ya’ll arrested? Well, er, I’ve been feeling awful about it. So I brought you a pie. Are we cool now?”
I wonder why the news story includes the name of the people who did nothing wrong (the Kalonjis) but excludes the names of the individuals who precipitated this injustice. Those people should at least be held out for public ridicule.
The neighbors didn’t do anything wrong in the legal sense. They knew the house was vacant, and they were looking out for it. The matter should have ended as soon as the deputies showed up, not with the new homeowners carted off to the slammer.
Back to the real world. The neighbors are liable as hell for the new homeowner’s legal tab, and I smell a false arrest suit against the deputies and sheriff’s department. And I want the new people to prevail across the board.
The neighbors held them at gunpoint. I know that local laws vary a lot about such things but I’m not sure how that was legal. If the neighbors were concerned, they should have called the cops from their home and stayed inside.
If they had just reported to the police that there were some people apparently breaking into the house, then they would have been doing nothing wrong. But threatening the new neighbours with a gun has to be wrong, either as an unlawful citizen’s arrest, or as something else, e.g., criminal assault.
(My understanding is that with a citizen’s arrest, the person doing the arrest has to know that a felony is in process or has just occurred. No felony had taken place before the neighbours threatened with their gun.)
You can’t just hold guns to people in a threatening matter, just like you can’t hold a steak knife to someone in a threatening matter. And even if these had been thieves, the neighbors didn’t have any justification to restrain them in this way. This wasn’t their property. They themselves were not in any danger.
If the new homeowners had been armed, they would have had every right to defend themselves.
The neighbors need to be held accountable for their foolishness.
Here in Ga there’s been a rash of “sovereign citizens” breaking into foreclosed & empty homes, doing a bit of repair work, then selling and/or renting out the homes, claiming that they now own the homes thanks to adverse possession laws.
No, they thought it was vacant. As the rightful owners were present, it was not in fact vacant, and so the neighbours committed an armed home invasion.
“I’m sorry, sir…we have had an issue with squatters. I just need to confirm. Can I get the name of your closing company, or perhaps your mortgage representative?”
We closed on a house about two years ago. The mortgage rep, the realtor and the closing company could have all vouched without an arrest. Not to mention, the possession of the key should have been a clue to the police that an arrest was premature without more investigation.