Prince George’s County home squatters refuse to leave $379K house Maryland couple newly acquire, insisting that they have lease to property as case may have to go to civil court.
A Maryland couple will likely be forced to begin an expensive and timely court procedure seeking to evict a ‘group of random strangers’ that moved into the house they had just purchased for $379,600.
The couple signed a contract with US Bank to purchase the five-bedroom home at 10716 Dragoo Place in Clinton, Maryland on Thursday.
But the celebrations of buying a new home where short lived when the wife drove past the property only to come across a U-Haul in the driveway and people moving in, WUSA reported.
She tried to confront them, only for the new tenants to show her what they claimed was a lease for the property, and refused to leave according to the real estate agent involved in the sale.
‘She panicked a little and called me and said, ‘What is happening here?” Melea King, the real estate agent, said of the new homebuyer according to WUSA.
Civil matter…
‘It seems as though someone has tried to take possession of the property.’
Added King: ‘We have an agreed, signed ratified contract with the bank’ to purchase, what she says, was the previously vacant and foreclosed upon home.’
King now claims that officers with the Prince George’s County Police Department examined the men’s lease ‘and it was not accurate. It was not correct.’
The police department has since confirmed that one of its officers went to the house on Thursday, but said at this point the issue looks like a ‘civil matter’ for the sheriff’s office.
In the meantime, WUSA reports, the men are continuing to live at the home — where signs have been put up asking people not to trespass and that it is private property.
When a reporter with WUSA tried to speak with the men living in the house, they said a man named Quinn had the lease. They identified Quinn as their uncle, but did not know his last name.
A neighbor also told the dailymail that a marijuana smell coming from the house, along with a woman and a baby living inside.
‘we just don’t know what to do at this point.’
‘I’m not real comfortable right now with everything that’s going on, and I’ve been here 20 years so I hope it could be resolved really soon,’ she said.
But, King said, ‘we just don’t know what to do at this point.’
‘It should not be taking this long for this to be addressed,’ she added, as the couple demands answers from the bank about how the squatters were able to get inside.
In order to evict squatters in the state of Maryland, residents must fill out a complaint in their district court, after which a summons will be issued to the squatters.
Either party can request a jury trial.
The 2,743 square foot property was previously listed on real estate website Redfin.
It described the five-bedroom as needing work, but noted that the $379,000 sale price reflects the work that needs to be done.
Photos accompanying the listing show a large eat-in kitchen, a living room complete with a fireplace and a sprawling backyard.
It remained unclear how many months or even years the new homeowner could be wrangled in civil court proceedings seeking to evict the new home dwellers.
