Single Home Purchase Error Gives Woman Entire Neighborhood

A woman intended to buy a single-family home in Sparks, Nevada — and left with 84 empty lots and two other pieces of land, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

The planned purchase was $594,481 for one house, but an administrative error left her with an entire neighborhood. The title agency made a simple copy-paste mistake, according to Cori Burke, chief deputy assessor for Washoe County, who spoke with the Reno-Gazette.

“It appears Westminster Title out of Las Vegas may have copied and pasted a legal description from another Toll Brothers transfer when preparing (the homebuyer’s) deed for recordation,” Burke told the outlet.

In this case, Burke added to Entrepreneur, the relevant title agency, Westminster Title Agency, inadvertently transferred a property description related to the Toll Brothers’ luxury development near Reno, to the Sparks woman.

The Toll Brothers develops luxury real estate all over the country but with a particular presence in the West and Florida and the “most highly desirable areas of the country,” per its website.

A home in this development in particular boasts nearby golfing and views of the Sierra Nevada.

Burke’s office was able to catch the goof pretty quickly, she said.

“We have a division that processes all these transfers, and they’re used to really closely looking at transfers because mistakes are fairly common, so they recognized right away something was not right and called Westminster immediately,” she said.

To resolve it, the property was transferred back from the Sparks woman to the Toll Brothers and the people who bought some of the lots from the Toll Brothers.

“It’s all been cleaned up,” Burke added.

Westminster Title Agency, which appears to be owned by the Toll Brothers, did not respond right away to a request for comment, nor did Toll Brothers.