County Finds Way to Get Land it Wants

When a county in Maryland decided to realign a road there was a small problem, the land they needed was already occupied and legally owned by a private owner who also had a ranch estate on the property that sits on two lots and is worth close to $300,000. Eventually officials offered the current owner $5,000 for 1,000 square feet of land. The owner refused. Pissed off because no one tells them no, the county played dirty and tried to condemn the ranch estate. Eventually, they settled in court, and the current owner got to stay. The husband and wife, owners Deborah Kroll and Robert Kroll, eventually have a fallen out. They get divorced. And when the Krolls divorced, each got a lot. Nine years later, Robert Kroll died of cancer, and his current live in girlfriend, Rosie Bell, was appointed as his personal representative. Bell, who never lived in the house, wanted Deborah Kroll to sell the house that her late boyfriend partly owned, but she refused. So Bell sued for the house, and in September, County Superior Judge Paul G. Goetzke took the girlfriends side. He ruled that the house couldn't be divided between the two women, so Kroll had to sell it. Kroll was not happy about the judges decision and she refuses to sell the house. Eventually, Deborah Kroll, put up a big ass sign in her front yard, next to the court ordered 'for sale' sign, that says.

"I am being forced to sell my house of 35 years, because the girlfriend of my dead ex-husband sued me and won," the sign reads. "Is this justice?"

Kroll, 58, said she has no plans to remove the sign, despite pressure from the county Circuit Court to sell the three-bedroom single-family home and split the proceeds with her ex-husband's girlfriend. Should someones girlfriend have this much control over the dead boyfriends assets? You can read the original news story, as reported by the Maryland Gazette, here.