The town of Newtown will acquire the home where Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza lived and killed his mother.
The town’s legislative council voted Wednesday to take ownership of the property at 36 Yogananda St., which is assessed at $360,000, from the Hudson City Savings Bank of New Jersey at no cost.
The bank ended up as the owners of the 2.1-acre property after a series of land transfers documented in probate records.
The property was part of Nancy Lanza’s estate to which son Ryan Lanza is the sole heir. In August, Ryan Lanza authorized Stamford attorney Samuel Starks, the administrator of the estate, to sell the property.
Starks sold it a few weeks later to 36 Yogananda LLC, which was formed by Norwalk attorney Kenneth Gruder. The corporation sold it to the bank in September.
Nancy and Peter Lanza purchased the 3,100-square-foot home in 1998. Nancy and Adam Lanza had lived there until Dec. 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza shot her multiple times with a rifle while she was sleeping.
Adam Lanza then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first-graders and six adults before taking his own life.
Nancy and Peter Lanza were divorced in 2009. Probate records show that at the time of her death, Nancy Lanza had a mortgage of more than $402,000. Gruder said that Hudson City Savings Bank assumed the mortgage when it purchased the property.
Gruder said the notoriety of the home made it virtually unsalable.
Lawyers not involved in the process said the open house alone would have been a circus. They said the series of transactions through the limited liability corporation and the bank were necessary so that the final documents will not show that the town purchased the property from the shooter’s family.
It is unclear what the town will do with the property. Several families of the victims have called for the house to be torn down because it is a constant reminder of the massacre.
First Selectman Patricia Llodra could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. In an article in the Newtown Bee, Llodra said that she had reached out to victims’ families for suggestions on what to do with the property but that will not be decided until much later.
The yellow house has been vacant since the massacre, the front door covered with plywood. After the shooting, police seized computers, journals, thousands of rounds of ammunition and guns from the home.
The probate court did allow Peter and Ryan Lanza access to the home to remove personal items.