‘It Makes Us Very Angry’: Black Texas Family Blindsided After Property Developer Demolishes Childhood Home with ‘Everything Still Inside’ and Builds Duplex on Their Land Without Legal Right
A Texas family is preparing to launch a legal battle against a property developer that secured permits to demolish their family home last year and build a duplex on the land the company doesn’t legally own.
In March 2024, Robert Alexander visited his childhood home at 118 Kimble Lane in Austin to find it gone, KVUE reported.
“Everything was still inside — all of our family heirlooms. Everything was destroyed,” Robert said.
The home belonged to the family matriarch — Julia Alexander — who died in 1979, and Robert’s brother Charles lived there up until last year. But when the family came up short on some property taxes, Charles moved out.
“I kept getting letters and things like that — phone calls saying that we were behind on taxes and we had to leave, so that’s why my brother [Charles] left. And immediately after, that house was torn down,” Kelly Alexander said.
Soon after that discovery, the family visited again to find that a developer had cleared the land to break ground for a new housing development.
Now, in their family home’s place sits a brand new duplex.
KVUE launched an investigation to find that public records still list Julia and Charles Alexander as owners at 118 Kimble Lane. The company that built the duplex, Precise Custom Homes, bought the lot next to it in 2023.
Though the lot the company purchased had no listed street number, the address for the duplex it built is listed as 120 Kimble Lane on several real estate sites, even though part of the property is on the Alexanders’ land.
A construction permit search yielded results showing that 120 Kimble had a permit for demolition issued in February 2024, just one month before Robert Alexander visited the land to find his home destroyed.
The tenant renting the unit on the Alexanders’ property said he had no idea what happened.
“Shock. But to hear that, you know, all this is happening, is very unfortunate,” Joshua Labauve said.
Real estate attorney Julia Null discovered that the developer legally purchased the lot next to the Alexanders’ land, yet the duplex it constructed straddles its lot and the family’s lot.
“It appears that … a developer bought Lot 9 and then, unfortunately, forced the family out for Lot 8, took down their home, bulldozed it, and then moved into it and actually built on it,” Null said.
KVUE tried contacting Precise Custom Homes Director Danny Olivarez several times and was met with no response at first.
When Olivarez finally responded, he refused to comment and told the reporter she didn’t have “solid, accurate information,” and that “the complainer is trying to get something for free.”
He added that KVUE was “wasting time,” claiming the house was “foreclosed” on “in the 70s.”
Olivarez refused to give paperwork to prove his claims, but county tax records reveal that no foreclosure process was ever initiated on the home, and that the family still owed $15,000 in back taxes.
“When they bought Lot 9, it very specifically said in their legal description that it butted up to Julia Alexander’s property, showing that they did not own that property,” Null said. “So I’m not sure where the confusion happened.”
The Alexanders said they’re now preparing to sue Precise Custom Homes for wrongful taking of property.
“Oh, it makes us angry. It makes us very angry,” said Kelly Alexander. “We’re ready for a fight. We’re the Alexanders.”