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Fl - How Do I Legally And Without Problems, Sell My House That Will Soon Have A Registered Sex Offender Living Next Door?

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Location: Florida - Hoping to keep this short. HOA sent violation warnings and cease/desist letters to my neighbor for multiple and various serious infractions, which were ignored. After that, HOA failed to take any action. Some of the infractions include damage to our property and community easement damage which were never repaired. We repaired our own damage because we received a violation letter from the HOA.

On top of other suspicious criminal-adjacent activity, there were massive parties (500+ people) which resulted in cars found on my lawn in the morning along with other items like vomit, needles, condoms, beer bottles, etc. It's a well-kept, small, upscale gated community, so this is the ONLY house in the neighborhood that caused problems. But being a conservative neighborhood, everybody else ignored. Because it was ultimately an unlivable environment, we bought a different house, and moved. We were planning on selling the old house.

But a few weeks ago, we saw the neighbor's face plastered all over the local news. He has been charged with multiple sex offenses against, for now, up to 30 young local women who were allegedly drugged, followed by videos of them being sexually assaulted and battered uploaded to various porn sites. We are now worried we won't be able to sell our house, or we will have to take a huge loss.

We feel like victims too. We didn't ask him to buy the house next door, but we are suffering. We can't sue the neighbor because he has no official assets. His parents have the house in a trust, and the HOA declined to sue them because they have more money than the HOA has. There is a covenant in place stating no criminal activity is allowed and no felons are allowed to reside in the neighborhood. That alone would be grounds for them to take action, but they will not.

My questions: Do I have to disclose all this? I know FL is a due diligence state, but I've been told by friends, that doesn't matter. Also, I wouldn't want to buy a house without being warned about the neighbor, especially if I had teenagers. Should we take a loss on the house by disclosing, and sue the HOA? If none of the above, any ideas? Finally, is there a specific type of real estate attorney that would handle a situation like this? Thanks for reading.

submitted by /u/Sad-Horror-9102
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