Couple uses little-known law to take possession of abandoned Old Southwest Reno house

There is a house in Reno's Newlands Heights Historic District whose owner abandoned it 13 years ago. It's surrounded by well-kept Tudor-style houses on large parcels, modest pre-war brick houses and historic mid-century Frederic DeLongchamps-designed homes.

But this 1,620-square-foot house at 110 Mark Twain Avenue was not like those. It was an eyesore, the worst house on a street of nice houses. That's why Vickie and Jeff Francovich, a fifth-generation Nevadan, paid its $6,500 in delinquent property taxes and started fixing it up, so they could move in and make it their own.

"One can only speculate why someone would abandon a house in the Old Southwest, but when we discovered it (in 2012), externally it was an eyesore and the inside was uninhabitable as a result of lack of maintenance, busted pipes, rodent and pest infestation and what appeared to be intentional damage," said 62-year-old Vickie Francovich.

Francovich said the cost of the repairs and back taxes was more than the house was worth in 2012. Today, Zillow estimates the house is worth more than $500,000. Similar houses nearby sold for about $465,000.

Rent prices: What's driving Reno's high rents?

Down payments: Reno median house down payment hits record high, 16th in nation

Instead of buying the house from the owner, the Francoviches took advantage of a little-known law called adverse possession. The law allows anyone to trespass and take over an abandoned property after certain criteria are met.

In Nevada, that person can spend five years paying property taxes and, if they want, improving the property, before suing the current owner for the title.

This is different from squatters, who inhabit a property to the detriment of it and the neighborhood.

Adverse possession exists because the American legal system generally prefers land to be used rather than sit unused, said Steve Silva, a land use and eminent domain attorney at Fennemore Craig who teaches property law at Truckee Meadows Community College.

The concept itself dates back to the Code of Hammurabi.

“Do you want an absentee owner who ignores the property and leaves a vacant house or fallow field, or do you want someone who takes care of it and improves it?" Silva said. “The law does not like waste.”

The law was historically used to make better use of rural land that may be owned but underutilized. It ensures that someone using property would not find themselves ousted when someone else suddenly showed up and claimed to be the legal heir to an absent owner.

But, the law can be applied in urban settings, too. Often, Silva said, the law is used for fences that encroach on a neighbor's property.

It also applies to the abandoned house on Mark Twain. But the law is rarely applied to take over an entire house. The Francoviches said city permit manager and lead inspector estimated this would be the fifth such case in Nevada.

But there's a catch to the law.

If the owner returns, they can fight to gain the property back. But the court won't just give it back. The original owner might have to prove to a judge that they would use it better, and a judge may even require them to reimburse the trespassers for any improvements made.

“It’s fascinating in the sense that it is different — it’s not something many people are aware of, I had never heard of it," Francovich said. "For five years we wondered, 'What do we do if she comes back?' And she didn’t come back. So that’s the statute of limitations.”

The Francoviches treated the property like their own home. They even paid utility bills still in the original owner's name. They repaired the sidewalks at the city of Reno's request. They fixed the disastrous yard and added a walkway, too. Several neighbors told the RGJ they were aware of Jeff and Vickie's plan.

Francovich owns Building Solutions, Inc., a construction contractor company in Reno. Her husband Jeff also co-owned businesses in the region, and his brother Sam Francovich Jr. owns The Grill at Quail Corners and Francovich Distillers of local egg nog fame.

The Francoviches knew it was possible the owner, 74-year-old Joan Brown, could return at any time to take the house back. Taking over a house they don't own and then pouring money into it is a huge risk, Francovich said.

“It’s nerve-wracking, I’m not going to lie, because you want to wait until the title is changed but you have to do all these things to make it livable," she said. "We’ve invested at least $200,000 into making it livable."

Over the last six years, the Francoviches lived in the house part time and rented it out while waiting for the five years to pass. They've also lived in their own home, which they are now selling.

Neighbor Stephanie Hogen said she remembers seeing about five or six different groups living in the house in the last six years, from college students to young couples. The law does not specify whether an adverse possessor must live in the house full time.

When the Francoviches sued Brown for the title in October, their lawyer hired a private investigator to locate Brown, to give her a chance to take the house back.

But they couldn't find her and no one responded to the summons published in the RGJ.

What happened to Joan Brown?

Joan Brown purchased the house in the late 1970s after graduating from the University of Nevada, Reno, according to court documents and Brown's longtime friends. She lived in the house until about 2005.

Neighbor Stephanie Hogen has lived across the street from the house for 15 years. She remembers that Brown appeared eccentric at times, spoke fluent French and frequently talked about living out her years in France.

Brown's sister-in-law told Francovich they hadn't seen Brown in more than 10 years, but that she always wanted to go to Europe. One of Brown's cousins also said he was not interested in the house and only wanted to find out where Brown went, according to Reno police interviews.

In 2005, Brown left everything behind in Reno. A private investigator found that she lived in California from 2005 to 2009, but was not able to find lease or property records, according to court documents.

The private investigator could not find out what happened to Brown after 2009.

In 2009, Brown stopped paying property taxes, according to Washoe County records. Three years later, Washoe County prepared to foreclose and sell the house at auction.

The Francoviches were driving through the neighborhood in 2012 and saw the county's notice on the front door. They went to the county, paid the $6,500 in back taxes a month before the auction and began the process of taking over the house.

They thought they'd have a better chance of owning the house through adverse possession instead of battling other people at auction.

This year, when the Francoviches tried to replace the oil heat with a gas furnace, they filed permits with the city and hired contractors.

Reno City Council Member Jenny Brekhus found out about the work and contacted city staff, who stopped the permit since the current owner of record, Brown, did not file the permits.

Brekhus did not originally know the Francoviches' plans and asked the police if Joan Brown was a missing person.

Reno police managed to track Brown to a nursing home in Vienna, Austria, and dropped the case since she was not missing and adverse possession is legal.

"Ms. Brown is well known to our office and she has been appointed a legal guardian," Michael Strahberger, chief citizen services assistant at the U.S. Consulate in Austria, wrote in an email to the Reno police.

Strahberger told the police that Brown is still alive and was recently hospitalized but is in stable condition.

Brown's lawyer and guardian in Austria, Christiane Bobek, told the RGJ Brown traveled to Austria for a family funeral in 2009.

“I have found out only a few weeks ago that Mrs. Brown has a property in Reno and that it is in the process of adverse possession," Bobek wrote in an email to the RGJ.

What happens to the house now?

Reno's housing inventory is at its lowest since the recession. Yet, there are about 18,700 vacant or abandoned housing units in Washoe County, according to a 2016 U.S. Census Bureau survey. There are 12 million such houses nationwide.

During a time of rapid population growth and housing price increase in Reno, the Francoviches found a way to circumvent traditional ways of acquiring a new home.

Population record: Nevada is less than 2,000 people away from reaching a population of 3 million

2018 trends: More bars, more houses, and other Reno trends to watch for in 2018

“I have empathy for (Brown)," Vickie Francovich said. "I have an elderly mom and I know people who lost their homes in 2006 and people whose houses became less valuable than they owed and they just let them go. I don’t know what was going through her mind, but it was an opportunity we decided to seize."

Several of the neighbors told the RGJ they were happy the Francoviches were fixing up the house. Jeff Francovich told several of them about the process they went through to acquire the house.

Jeff's father, Sam Francovich, lived on Mark Twain Avenue in the 1970s when he was a lawyer. Joan Brown's first husband Sam Belford was also a lawyer in the 1970s. It's possible they worked together when Reno was a much smaller town.

Perhaps finding the house abandoned was kismet.

“Our desire was to be back in the Old Southwest," Vickie Francovich said. "So that made it all a fairytale for us to find the property."

Francovich isn't happy the furnace work was stopped by the city because she felt they were improving a dilapidated house and, in turn, improving the neighborhood. But if the court rules in their favor, they will be able to replace the furnace and many other parts of the house in the future.

A date has not yet been set for when the courts will decide whether the house's title will default to the Francoviches. A judge must review the case, and though the deadline passed for Brown to return, she could still contact the court and sway a decision.

Her lawyer, Bobek, said she would try to contact a Nevada lawyer who could represent Brown in order to keep her property.

“We’ll see. We’ll see if we get the title or if she decides to come back to Reno," Francovich said. "This is where we hope to retire."

Mike Higdon is the city life reporter at the RGJ and can be found on Instagram @MillennialMike, on Facebook at Mike Higdon, Reno Life and on Twitter @MikeHigdon.

Updated Feb. 2 at 10:30 a.m. with additional details about Joan Brown and the Francovich family.

Correction Feb. 14 at 2 p.m.: An estimate about previous adverse possession cases was incorrectly attributed to the wrong person and has been corrected.