A San Francisco home that went on the market for an unexpected $488,000 in June has now sold for the asking price, but there seems to have been a lot of drama going on behind the scenes.
Owner Todd Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle, “This is a family mess.”
There were claims of “betrayal” and “deception.”
Redfin shows that the house was sold on July 16.
The listing made it clear that the house was already rented out to people whose lease gives them “possible occupancy rights until 2053” and “strong long-term rent rate amount restrictions.” The rent is $416.67 a month, and they also pay for electricity.
The house was bought by Sandra’s parents for $52,000 in the 1970s, and they lived there until they died. In an earlier interview with The San Francisco Standard, Sandra said that Todd and her brother Cedric Goo had lied to her and her daughter to get the house listed against her will.
Sandra also said that Kenneth Goo, her stepfather and the original owner, wrote her a lease before he died, but she didn’t know about it until after he died. The lease gave her long-term rent rate limits until 2053.
“I do not know where we would be if [my son] had known about the lease that was signed in 2018,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that my son is lying and betraying me like this.”
A mess with money
The Chronicle reports that Todd rejected his mother’s claims and said he agreed to the sale to avoid going to court, even though other buyers had made higher offers.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” he said. “Things got much worse after my mom spoke out.”
The house is part of the family trusts that Todd says Kenneth made him manager of. Cheryl, Sandra, and Cedric are the beneficiaries. Sandra and Cedric are each owed 37.5%, and Cheryl is the one who gets the last 25%.
According to the Chronicle, Kenneth first leased the property in 2019 for a term that finished on March 31, 2049. The tenant was required to pay property taxes and insurance as rent during the term of the contract, and they were allowed to use the property with their “immediate and extended family.”
Robert Roddick, the lawyer for the family trusts, says that he helped write the first lease and that Cheryl is the named renter.
After two years, Kenneth changed the lease so that the renter would only have to pay $5,000 a year for property taxes and insurance, or $416.67 a month. He also extended the lease until December 31, 2053.
When Kenneth died in 2022, the house was looked at again the next year. According to government records, the home’s value went from $143,152 to $1,428,000, and its property taxes went from $1,717 a year to an unbelievable $16,928 a year. It was noticed by Todd that Cheryl had recently paid the property taxes.
Without the tenants living there, Roddick says the house was worth $1.8 million, but the tenants “won’t cooperate and move out to get the maximum price for the home,” Roddick says.
He says that if the house sold for $1.8 million, Sandra and Cheryl would each get about $1.1 million for their share, and Cedric would get about $700,000 (not counting any costs or bills owed to the family trust).
If Sandra and Cheryl bought the house for $500,000, on the other hand, Sandra and Cheryl would each get about $300,000 from the sale, while Cedric would get $200,000. In this case, the mother and daughter would have a $1.8 million house.
