San Francisco Couple Mistakenly Buys Dirt Alley

What do you do when your new home purchase turns out to be as good as dirt? What about if it turns out to be dirt itself?

A San Francisco couple unknowingly bought an unpaved alleyway in the Outer Sunset district after what they believed was a bargain purchase for a property at 1924-1926 Kirkham Street being auctioned off for as little as $1, Realtor.com reported.

J.J. Hollingsworth and Alemayehu Mergia, who lived next door, jumped on the opportunity to buy what they believed was a two-unit rental property that had sold for more than $1 million last December. The couple submitted a bid for $25,000 as well as an additional $8,000 for the transfer tax.

When their transfer tax check was returned, they did more research and found that they had, in fact, not purchased the building at 1924-1926 Kirkham Street, but instead bought the 83-foot-long, 7-foot-wide unpaved alley between that property and their home. The property is officially listed as “Dirt Alley” on Google Maps, though the couple has since taken to nicknaming it “Hollingsworth Alley.”

It was a simple case of not reading the fine print. After closely re-reading a letter from the tax collector that initially notified them of the auction, they realized they missed several key pieces of information, including a note that the auction was for the sale of plots that had been “rendered unusable by their size, location or other conditions.”

By the time they realized their mistake, the couple had already celebrated prematurely.

“It was devastating,” Hollingsworth told CBS News. “It was absolutely devastating. We had already celebrated and told our friends. I went over and said, ‘Hey, I’m your landlord now. We’re not going to kick you out or raise your rent.'”

To make matters worse, the couple paid much more than any other bidder had offered in the auction. About half of the 47 plots in the sealed auction were sold, four for just $1; the rest sold for between $10 and $11,000, with the median sale price (omitting the couple’s bid) being $435, the San Francisco Standard reported.

Mergia and Hollingsworth are now working to get their money back, though that would involve the Board of Supervisors voting to overturn the sale — something it’s only done once in the past.

The tax collector’s office, meanwhile, insists it communicated the nature of the property as clearly as possible.

— Chris Malone Méndez