A young couple that paid $560,000 cash on Jan. 31, 2020, to purchase a four-bedroom home in the Southern California community of Riverside is still unable to move into their property more than a year later because the seller is refusing to vacate, taking full advantage of a Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) eviction moratorium loophole in the Golden State that bars delinquent property occupiers from being removed.
Despite owning their home for a year and two months-and-counting, Myles and Tracie Albert are having to fight to try to take realized ownership of it. However, as long as California's Democrat-led legislature continues to pass legislation extending the eviction moratorium – and as long as Gov. Gavin Newsom keeps signing said legislation into law – their attempts will be futile.
"It's just draining, emotionally and financially," Tracie told FOX 11, a local news affiliate that went with the couple to the property in question to try to reason with the former owners-turned-squatters, to no avail.
Chris Taylor, the real estate agent that sold the home, told the media that his client "needed $560,000 from the sale of his house in two weeks and he called me on a Sunday, so in traditional real estate there's no way of doing that unless the buyer's a cash buyer."
The Alberts were able to complete the cash buy, only to have their transaction go awry due to the eviction moratorium. Little did they know that the seller was apparently in-the-know about his newfound "rights" thanks to the Chinese virus and the California state government's response to it.
"It's genuinely unfathomable to me that we live in a state where something like this is even possible," Taylor added in a statement. "[The Alberts] closed escrow on this home Jan. 31, 2020."
Local attorney says he's handled eight other similar cases in Southern California
According to Myles, he and his wife had to scrape up everything they had, meaning their entire life savings, along with a hard money loan in order to make the purchase possible. They now own the home outright, if only they were able to occupy it.
"That's our house and it's all in a contract, written, legal, done," Myles says. "He's been paid the money in his account. How could we have no rights to go into our home?"
"They have this case under a COVID tenant situation, of no evictions when it doesn't fall under that at all," Myles added. "This transaction went through in January 2020 before any of that. It isn't a renter who was getting thrown out. It's the guy who collected all of this money."
No other state, as far as this writer is aware, has policies like this in place. Had the Alberts purchased a home anywhere else, in other words, they would already be living in it without issue.
"If you were in Arizona, if you were in Nevada, this wouldn't be a problem," Tracie told the media. "You would just go take your house back. But in California ... our hands are tied, even though we're on your side, there's nothing we can do."
Local attorney Dennis Block told FOX that this year alone, his office has handled "at least seven, maybe eight cases of this exact type of situation."
"This person is not a tenant," Block explained. "It's a previous owner who is enjoying the benefits of the money that was transferred to his account but of course doesn't want to move out of the premises that he no longer owns."
More related news about the societal impact of the government's Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) edicts can be found at Collapse.news.
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