Couple shocked their $1.8M home has clause stating it can't be sold to black or ... trends now
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An Oregon couple were shocked to discover their $1.8m home has a racist 100-year-old clause in its ownership documents stating it cannot be sold to black, Japanese or Chinese people.
Gerrit Koepping and his wife Elisabeth Zeller were stunned when they went to sign the deal on their Lake Oswego home in 2018 and have fought to change the offensive contract.
The couple, who are white, objected to an archaic clause, known as a covenant, which said the property cannot be 'used or occupied' by anyone who is black or of Chinese or Japanese descent, 'except that persons of these races may serve as servants of residents may be employed.'
But at the land registry company and at the county clerk's office they were informed that the document was part of the permanent records of the house which was built in 1969.
'As hateful and hurtful as the language is, it's a legal document I had to sign to buy my home,' Koepping told The Oregonian. 'Not only am I adding my name to a statement of horrible racism, I'm also adding to generations of people.'
