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Rocklin Homeowners Say Developer Telling Them To Pay Thousands To Keep Property

ROCKLIN (CBS13) — A Roseville developer who just bought a piece of property in Rocklin says homeowners who have lived in the area for decades are now trespassing on his land.

Twenty years after Debbie Duvall moved into her Rocklin home, she's being told she doesn't own several feet of her home, and if she wants to keep it, she'll need to pay thousands.

"It's just bully tactics, and I don't understand," she said.

Duvall and a half-dozen of her neighbors are simply being robbed, she says, by Roseville developer Jon Tattersall of Maverick Properties.

"It sounded like we were all encroaching between 15 feet or more onto his property," she said.

The developer sent them a letter a few months ago saying their properties were encroaching on land he just bought, and they were now trespassing. That was news for many of the homeowners who have lived there for years.

Tattersall wasn't available to go on camera, because he says he is recovering from surgery. He told CBS13 over the phone that he hired an engineer to survey the property where he plans to build 80 homes.

That survey revealed seven homes weren't built within the correct property lines in the 1960s.

So who is right—the engineer who surveyed the land in the 1960s, or the developer's engineer?

The longtime homeowners say it shouldn't matter.

"How are we responsible for it?" said Manjit Baines.

To make matters worse, neighbors say they were told to pay as much as $30,000 if they wanted to keep their homes the way they are.

"He's saying I lose more than half of my backyard, and he wants over $10,000," said Chris Schipper.

Baines says the developer told her owes $17,000 to cover the backyard she's had for nearly 30 years.

The developer released a statement saying in part that he'd work with homeowners who couldn't afford to resolve the boundary problem, and he's working with all of them. But Duvall says she hasn't heard from him.

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