ZACHARY - Documents show a family who built their home on the wrong lot received hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement for an abandoned oil well on that property.

The WBRZ Investigative Unit brought you the story last week about Thomas Robertson and his brother's quest to right a real estate wrong.
They say two neighboring lots, one owned by Robertson's brother and the other by the Mulder family, somehow got switched up in the surveying process and the Mulders built their dream home on the wrong property.

According to the LA Orphaned and Abandoned Wells online database, there's an abandoned well at the very back of the lot where the Mulders built their home.

Data shows it was operated by IP Petroleum Company and had been plugged in the '80s, but apparently not well enough. The Mulders sued the petroleum company in 2014, claiming gas had been leaking from the well site into the earth and underground water supply, as well as making it to the surface.

Because the leak affected several lots, Robertson and other families joined the suit, however, Robertson says he had no idea about the property mix-up at that time.

Eventually, the suit was settled for $850,000. The Mulders took home $320,000 after paying attorney's fees and Robertson received around $115,000.

"I realize that the Mulders are in a precarious situation, but we are exploring, at this point, whether or not there is any evidence that may suggest that there was some 'bad faith,'" Ken Fabre, Robertson's brother's attorney, said.

Fabre alleges the Mulders may have known about the oil well and its potential to garner a large settlement, meaning they intentionally built on the wrong lot.

"I don't know that, but we have to explore that. It's something that the judge will be looking at, too."

In his deposition from February, Stevie Mulder was adamant they did not know about the property mistake when they discovered the well in 2011 or when they settled with the oil company in 2017.

The Mulders admitted in that deposition that they now know their house is sitting on the wrong lot. They blame the company that did the survey and their real estate agent.

Robertson blames the city parish for approving the permits. Fabre hopes to have a trial set by August and wants the Mulders evicted as well as Robertson and his brother compensated.