Roomy period home in ultra-desirable coastal neighborhood lists for just $500,000 – but there’s a massive catch

A unique Edwardian-style property in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood, priced at nearly $500,000, has just hit the market
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A unique Edwardian-style property in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood, priced at nearly $500,000, has just hit the market.

The 1,100-square-foot home features three bedrooms, a garage and a fireplace in the living room for just $488,000.

It also features a ramp, a bathroom and an “unwarranted and perhaps illegal half bathroom.” It also has a fenced backyard.

But while this 1924-built multi-story single-family home may seem like a bargain to many, it comes with a huge catch.

A unique Edwardian-style property in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood, priced at nearly $500,000, has just hit the market

The buyer of this property may not be able to settle until 2053.

According to the San Francisco standardSandra Lee, 83, and her daughter Cheryl Lee, 66, are the home’s current tenants.

But it’s Sandra’s son, Todd Lee, who actually owns the property – meaning whoever buys the house will be his mother’s landlord.

Todd’s grandparents, Florence and Kenneth Goo, were the original buyers of the home in the 1970s for $52,000 and lived there until they died in the home in 2006 and 2018, respectively.

The current listing states that Sandra and her daughter will continue to live there and pay the same amount of rent each month for the next 29 years, a sum of $417, to the new owners.

The retired mother explained that Todd and her own brother, Cedric Goo, took advantage of her and her daughter.

She claims that by demanding her adopted stepfather’s trust, coming up with attorney fees and putting the house up for sale while she was still living there, they tried to take it over.

Under a secret lease written by her stepfather, Sandra receives a long-term rental rate of $416.67 (excluding utilities) through 2053.

Sandra went on to say that if “she had her way, the house wouldn’t be for sale.”

The Russian Hill is a luxury residential community known for the famous crooked Lombard Street, a major tourist destination

The Russian Hill is a luxury residential community known for the famous crooked Lombard Street, a major tourist destination

‘We had a large family. Now we are destroyed. If the lease was not there [my son] I didn’t know that was made in 2018, I don’t know where we would be.

“It’s unfathomable, the deception, the betrayal – this is my son doing this to me,” she lamented.

A neighbor named Ilia Smith related it ABC: ‘Thirty years. I don’t think I’ll be around for that.

Her husband Tim added: ‘The new owner would have to buy the house on a very long lease which is currently being offered to a private individual.’

When asked how such a lease was possible, attorney Steven MacDonald explained that the planning was a “shoddy way for the owner to leave any security for an individual.”

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“For some reason they gave this person 30 years of ownership rights. I’ve seen that before. It’s quite a sloppy way of estate planning. “I want to provide this person with some security so he doesn’t have to worry about where he’s going to live.” They can do it like this. I think they should have done it a different way,” he exclaimed.

The Russian Hill is a luxury residential community known for the famous crooked Lombard Street, a major tourist destination.

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