As squatters continue to torment homeowners across the U.S., a San Antonio, Texas, homeowner is retelling the events that warranted his eviction of a woman and her aggressive goat from the property he purchased from her.
In a series of incidents that occurred rather quickly, Daniel Cabrera, 37, purchased a five-bedroom, 2.5-bath home from a woman looking to sell immediately.
On July 2, 2022, the woman contacted Cabrera in hopes of selling her property to him. Cabrera, founder of Sell My House Fast SA TX and homebuyer of nearly 15 years, was aware she was being foreclosed on just three days later.
"Monday was the Fourth of July," Cabrera told Fox News Digital during a phone interview. "Needless to say, every lawyer, the courts, everybody was closed because of the Fourth of July weekend."
Despite tight deadlines, Cabrera sprung into action, put a plan in place and worked to find a lawyer over the holiday weekend in order to postpone the foreclosure by at least one month.
"I think I reached out to 300 different lawyers," he said. "Every lawyer I usually use was on vacation. I finally got a hold of one lawyer that charged me four times the going rate to work over July 4th weekend."
The delay was granted and Cabrera provided the former owner an extra 10 days to remain in the home in order to situate herself for her next move.
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"Ultimately, she was in a tough spot," he said. "She didn’t have a ton of money saved up."
Cabrera purchased the home for $175,00 and her earnings from the sale were $12,000. He believed this cushion would be enough to find a new place on short notice.
Upon closing, Cabrera said, much to his surprise, he never heard from her again despite calling, texting and emailing.
"The 10th or 11th day, we went to the house," Cabrera said. "Oddly enough, there was this pretty well-sized goat tied to the front door."
Cabrera intended to knock on the door as it was clear people were still living in the home.
"I tried approaching the door, and it was a pretty big goat," he said. "It wasn’t friendly either. I couldn’t get past the damn goat."
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Immediately, Cabrera contacted an attorney to take action.
In Texas, it is illegal to forcibly remove a squatter from a home, thus an eviction is necessary.
Homeowners across the Lone Star State are advised to monitor unoccupied homes and vacant rental properties in order to avoid disturbing takeover situations.
"At that point, we just had to evict her out of the house that I just bought from her," Cabrera said. "Fast-forward three months, we got awarded the eviction because she didn’t show up to court."
With two police officers, a locksmith, a junk removal company and his father, Cabrera approached the home to find the goat was no longer on the porch, but inside the house.
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"Now, the goat is running around the entire house," he said. "We had animal control come out because the police just didn’t know what to do with the goat."
However, animal control wouldn’t take the farm animal.
"The goat ran right into the police officer, got him pretty good in the leg, then he nailed my dad, too," Cabrera said. "We finally got the goat into the backyard of the house where he was just there and, I believe, the woman called up her son, who came a couple hours later and the son got the goat."
Cabrera was aware the home was beat up before he purchased it, and he didn’t spend much money on repairs that were related to the overstay. However, he shelled out $8,500 for lawyer fees to remove the woman and her pet, police officers, locksmiths and junk removers.
"It was all kind of very interesting, because she was saying how nice of a person I was and how much I helped her out," Cabrera said.
He added that he’s purchased, fixed up and resold hundreds of homes over the years and this is not his first experience with a squatter.
The newly remodeled home is estimated to be worth $286,816, according to Redfin.
While Cabrera sees squatting as a nuisance, he has educated himself and remains vigilant on the issue to avoid unlawful occupants in the future.
He added that no one was seriously injured by the goat.
