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Lawyer representing property owner wants family who built home on wrong plot evicted
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ZACHARY — Thomas Robertson says a house was built without his permission on property he bought in 2011.
What essentially boils down to human error led to the Mulder family building their home on Robertson's lot in 2018.
"Usually you have encroachment upon someone else's property, sometimes by accident, by crossing the line, but here you have a whole, full-blown, grown house that was built upon my client's property," said Ken Fabre, who represents the Robertsons. Fabre says, despite a seven-year legal battle, he believes this case will come to a solution before the end of the year.
The WBRZ Investigative Unit was provided with a copy of the Mulders' depositions, which Fabre believes will move the case forward in his client's favor.
In the 40-page deposition taken in February, homeowner Alicia Mulder admits on multiple occasions on the record that the house was not built on the correct property. In one excerpt, Mulder's attorney asks "Your house is on 3H-1 currently right? Is it not on the lot you own?"
She responds, "It is not on the lot we own."
Despite that admission, the legal process still has to play out. Fabre says, first and foremost, they want the land.
"We're demanding, obviously, eviction from my client's property, which obviously under the circumstances would be something that is obviously harsh, but in Louisiana, a property owner is not to be deprived of his or her enjoyment of their property."
A judge will have to determine who was at fault in the mistake—the family, the builder or the city-parish. The surveyor was previously on the suit, but has since been removed.
"The city-parish has attempted to get out of the suit since I've been involved. I've opposed that motion to have them dismissed and the judge at the time declined the city-parish's motion to be dismissed, so the city-parish is still in it," said Fabre.
A representative from the city-parish told us it is not standard practice for the permitting office to double-check ownership because they give the applicants the benefit of the doubt that they've done their due diligence.
The judge will also decide what the proper resolution is.
"If not eviction, there's going to have to be damages in an amount sufficient to satisfy my client to say 'okay, well that's good enough' and then we'll walk away and a potential property swap if that's available."
Fabre says he hopes to have a trial set for August.
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