A California couple who purchased a home in cash a year ago has been unable to move in due to a coronavirus eviction moratorium loophole in the state.
Tracie and Myles Albert bought their four-bedroom Riverside, California, dream home in cash for $560,000 last year, but the previous owner has refused to move out despite having the money in his account, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles.
“It’s genuinely unfathomable to me that we live in a state where something like this is even possible. They closed escrow on this home January 31, 2020,” the couple’s real estate agent, Chris Taylor, said about the situation.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed an eviction moratorium last year that was recently extended until at least June 2021, and authorities have told the couple there’s nothing they can do.
A Fox 11 Los Angeles reporter attempted to contact the tenant by knocking on the front door but received no response.
“They have this case under a COVID tenant situation, of no evictions when it doesn’t fall under that at all,” Myles Albert said in a statement. “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.”
Eviction attorney Dennis Block says he has handled “seven, maybe eight” similar cases of this exact situation” since the moratorium was enacted.
In addition to not being able to access the property they paid for, the couple says the owner has stopped taking care of the house, and it is becoming an eyesore.
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“I tried watering the lawn one time, and he came out and ripped my sprinkler lines, ripped all the wires,” Tracie Albert said. “The palm trees are dying, everything was beautiful, and everything is dying.”
“It’s just draining, emotionally and financially,” she added.
