A 93-year-old South Carolina woman claims developers are trying to force her to sell a property that has belonged to her family since the mid-1800s.
Josephine Wright said developer Bailey Point Investment has sued her and her family for three counts of alleged encroachment on Bailey’s 29-acre housing development from her 1.8-acre Hilton Head Island property, Reported by Island Packet.
The company, which built the 147-unit Bailey’s Cove near Wright’s property, said the encroachment was a shed and a satellite dish, both of which had been moved, as well as the house’s back porch.
Wright believes the lawsuit, which has cost the family more than $2,000, is a pretext for the family to sell the property she has lived in for 30 years to a developer.
In fact, the developer in the suit has challenged Wright’s title to the land, an issue that was never raised before construction began.
Roberts Vaux, an attorney for the family, said large corporations often take legal action to force small landowners to sell their Hilton Head Island properties.
“I can’t say that’s what these guys (Bailey Point) are doing, but it’s what I’ve seen over the last 51 years of practicing law on Hilton Head Island and Beaufort County,” Vaux told the outlet. “If they did, I don’t know if they did, but if they did, it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.”
Even though they removed the satellite dish and shed, the Wrights refused to alter their back porch, which they claimed would not cut through the developer’s land.
All they wanted, they said, was to be alone.
“I think [the property] Stay home,” Wright told the outlet. “The land has been in the family since the Civil War. ”
— Ted Glazer
