A man is suing a company after he returns to his family’s land in Connecticut after five years only to see a house being built on it. Dr Daniel Kenigsberg bought the half-acre strip at 51 Sky Top Terrace in Connecticut in 1991. The 0.45 acres of land remained densely covered with trees for almost seventy years. Nathaniel and Esther, his parents had originally purchased an acre of land and used only half of it to build their home on it. His father purchased the property for $5,000 in 1953.
After Daniel sold the family house in 2011, he intended to hand down the vacant piece of land, valued at $350,000, to his kids. However, what started as an innocuous purchase turned into an absolute nightmare when a friend alerted him that a home was being built on the land. So while he was in town from Long Island, Daniel stopped by the property to see whether it was true.
Someone pretended to be him and sold the land in August 2022. He used Daniel’s identity to give the lawyer the authority to handle legal matters for him and sell the land without Kenigsberg’s awareness. The lawyer thinking it was Daniel who gave him the authority, transferred ownership of the property to a real estate company 51 Sky Top Partners.
The property was sold for $350,000 in October of last year to 51 Sky Top Partners LLC according to Fairfield County property records. They hired a building company a few months later, to start constructing a four-bedroom house on the land. During all of this, Daniel remained completely unaware of these developments.
“Kenigsberg is requesting that the land’s title be returned to him and that Sky Top Partners stop construction and “remove any structures and/or materials” from the property, according to the suit,” CNN reported.
Daniel says he had nothing to do with the sale and according to the lawsuit he is now suing the company on nine counts including statutory theft, trespass, and unfair trade practices.
“The lawsuit accuses local attorney Anthony Monelli of using a forged power of attorney document to say he was Kenigsberg’s lawyer and execute the sale of the land.”
Daniel says that the paper has a fake version of his name signed and lies by saying he stays in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, as the legal claim mentions, he has never actually lived there. Currently, Dr. Kenigsberg lives in New York. He grew up in Connecticut on a piece of land next to the property mentioned in the legal case.
“I was living my life normally until May 31st, and all of a sudden, this happened,” he said.
“We, as buyers, had no contact with the party impersonating Kenigsberg,” said Leto. “We had no reason to believe he was an impostor. We would not have paid $350,000 for the property — nor would we have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars more in construction — if we had,” owner Gina Leto said.
