New Owners Find Home Already Occupied

Zael Zura and fiancee Veronica Botts (pictured left) closed on their little yellow house Friday after an alleged serial squatter delayed their move by about a week.

The first-time homebuyers put an offer on a recently renovated bank-owned home in Shoreline, Wash., several weeks ago, on the same day Zura proposed to Botts. But about 10 days before closing, on the day of their engagement party, Zura drove past the house and found a stranger living in what was suppose to be their vacant, 2-bedroom, 1-bath home, reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"I thought, what are they doing here, what are they stealing, and why are they here?" Zura told the paper. When he knocked on the door, one of the alleged squatters apparently told him, "Oh, I'm the new tenant."

Although a common fraud problem is for a scammer to rent out a home to unsuspecting renters even though they have no right to execute a lease, in this case police believe the so-called renters were knowingly part of the scam.