$1.5 million house that man found built on his land without permission has been sold

Remember the doctor from Connecticut, US, who returned to the land he bought in 1991 to find a $1.5 million house built on it without permission? It seems a resolution has been found after it was sold.

The shocking real estate scam hit headlines globally over the past year.

However, it seems the real estate closing on Tuesday 2 July has also brought the story of the shocking real estate scam has also brought the matter to a close, too.

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The controversial house sale

The sale of the four-bedroom house at 51 Sky Top Terrace in Fairfield, Connecticut, was contested following a fraudulent land sale.

The landowner, Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg of Long Island, had fallen victim to a rising type of scam called seller impersonation fraud. 

In other words, it had been sold without his permission.

However, it has eventually been sold to the same New Haven couple who originally agreed to buy it for $1.45 million – a figure just shy of the asking price.

This sale closed just one year after Kenigsberg, who owns the half-acre lot it sits on, filed a lawsuit over it.

How the land was sold without his permission

Kenigsberg returned to Fairfield in the spring of 2023 after a rather confusing phone call from a friend about a new house being constructed on his land.

He found the house built on land his family had owned for more than 70 years – without his permission or having sold it.

71-year-old Kenigsberg grew up in a house next door to the parcel and hoped to pass the land to his children.

Using forged papers, someone imitating Kenigsberg had ‘sold’ the wooded lot to a developer for $350,000. 

Kenigsberg then began legal action by suing the Trumbull lawyer who was involved in the land sale, Anthony Monelli.

He also took up a legal battle against the builders, a local partnership.

A federal lawsuit asked for $2 million in damages, asking for the house to be demolished to restore the lot to its original state.  

In response, the local building firm, Sky Top Partners, sued Monelli, the lawyer they had used, and the real-estate company and agent that listed the land in 2022.

With Kenigsberg receiving an undisclosed sum, the builders also gained a clean title to the land.

This allowed them to finish the house and sell it – allowing the judge to bring the matter to a more swift conclusion than anyone had anticipated.

And the scammer claiming to be Kenigsberg, seemingly working from South Africa?

Their identity remains a mystery however, the Fairfield Police turned the case over to the FBI.

Kenigsberg and Monelli are working to ensure this doesn’t happen again, speaking publicly on the case.

“If you live in California and you have land in Vermont, you’d better have somebody keeping an eye on it,” Kenigsberg told CTInsider.