on YouTube<\/a>, receiving more than 4.3 million views.<\/p>\nSalahutdin described the past ten years as \u201cliving through hell\u201d.<\/p>\n
The I-Team first interviewed Salahutdin in 2023 when he showed us what he once considered his dream home.<\/p>\n
![\"Hamid](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776914351_60_.png\")
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WFTS<\/p>\n
By that time, he described it as \u201cworthless\u201d after discovering a 50-foot utility easement running through his house and yard.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Salahutdin testified in court about the property, which backs up to 600 acres of county-owned land.<\/p>\n
“It was like God sent to me to move to this place,”Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
“It’s all woods back there and I’ve got deer, I’ve got raccoons, I’ve got bobcats, I’ve got coyotes,”Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
However, the hidden water lines disrupted his property.<\/p>\n
28 million gallons of water a day flow under property<\/p>\n
Jacqueline Simms-Petredis, Salahutdin’s attorney, explained the sheer volume of water moving beneath the land.<\/p>\n
“There are 28 million gallons of water gushing through these pipes every single day,” Simms-Petredis said.<\/p>\n
Salahutdin said he learned about the pipes in 2015 when city crews came to check equipment buried on his land.<\/p>\n
“They say it’s a blow-off valve for the pipes,” Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
A St. Petersburg Water Department supervisor then showed him the easement on a map.<\/p>\n
“I said, that’s my house,” Salahutdin said. \u201cYou gotta be kidding me.”<\/p>\n
A surveyor later marked the easement with flags and stakes, and Salahutdin used pink-painted roofing shingles to show the boundaries.<\/p>\n
![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776914352_511_.png\")
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County records<\/p>\n
“So it would stand out. So people could see it from the air,” Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
Drone footage shows the easement slashing directly through his usable property.<\/p>\n
“It goes through the pool, it goes through the hot tub, it goes through the screened-in, it goes through the kitchen,”Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
“The house and everything… it’s just… it’s worthless,” Salahutdin said back in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city made a big mistake\u201d<\/p>\n
During the trial, Simms-Petredis argued the city made a significant error regarding the property records.<\/p>\n
“The evidence will show you that the city made a big mistake. They failed to record an easement for over two decades,” Simms-Petredis said.<\/p>\n
The original easement was granted in 1930 but was not recorded until 1954.<\/p>\n
![\"Easement](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776914352_585_.png\")
<\/p>\n
County records<\/p>\n
During that 24-year gap, the property was split and sold multiple times, with no record of the easement.<\/p>\n
Salahutdin testified that he used a title company when refinancing in 2007, which confirmed there were no encumbrances or easements and granted him a title insurance policy.<\/p>\n
Title expert Penny Leite testified she searched the property records back to 1920 and discovered the land changed hands 10 times without the easement showing up on any deeds.<\/p>\n
“The easement is simply lost in time. There was no way to find it. I did the title search myself. There’s a copy of it. I did not find that easement myself either,” Leite said.<\/p>\n
![\"Penny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776914352_783_.png\")
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WFTS<\/p>\n
Despite the unrecorded easement, St. Petersburg City Attorney Joseph Kelly argued Salahutdin should have been aware of the pipes when he bought the property.<\/p>\n
“Had Mr. Salahuddin done even basic due diligence, it would not have been hard to find evidence that these pipes were underneath the land,” Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Salahutdin testified he bought the property directly from the former owner without an inspection or property survey.<\/p>\n
The city’s attorney also questioned Salahutdin’s claim that he never saw the blow-off valve located 50 feet from his house.<\/p>\n
Jury rules the easement can remain<\/p>\n
After four hours of deliberation, the jury ruled that the city’s easement will remain on the property.<\/p>\n
Jurors determined that even though the easement was not properly recorded, Salahutdin failed to take action that would have revealed the city’s equipment.<\/p>\n
“Nothing has changed. 11 years I’ve been fighting this,it’s still status quo,” Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
When asked if he felt he received justice, Salahutdin was clear.<\/p>\n
“No. Not at all. Not at all,” Salahutdin said.<\/p>\n
Salahutdin’s legal counsel was funded through his title insurance company. He is following up with them to see if they will appeal the case.<\/p>\n
Share Your Story with Adam
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AdamWalser.png\"\/)
Adam Walser has spent more than a decade fighting for what\u2019s right in Tampa Bay as part of the I-Team. He\u2019s helped expose flaws in Florida\u2019s eldercare system and held leaders accountable for questionable HOA practices. Reach out to Adam with any issue you think he needs to investigate.<\/p>\n
Send your story or tip to Adam Walser<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Owner of Storm Distillery dies from injuries in explosion, fire<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay 28 reporter Chad Mills spoke with Kara Schulte, a family friend who started the GoFundMe and described David Mohr as someone who brought people together and created a welcoming space in downtown Inverness.<\/p>\n
Owner of Storm Distillery dies from injuries in explosion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 An Odessa man lost his legal battle against the city of St. Petersburg today after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[53012,107168,40295,202,204,203,199,201,200,5910,8585],"class_list":["post-242736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-adam-walser","tag-easement","tag-legal-battle","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-water-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Painted](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776914351_777_.png\")
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