Q: Can a company sell land for 40k if it’s only worth 3k?

A: Land is worth what a willing buyer will agree to pay to a willing seller. Your parents were, apparently, willing buyers. So yes, the contract is legal.

A: If your parent's bought in 2005, things were on the upswing and following the boom between 2005 and 2007, many investors suffered from the downturn in real estate values in the following years. It's possible there was some kind of misleading information leading to the purchase, but most likely the issue is that today the property is worth much less than what they purchased it for and what they have been paying all of these years on. Sadly, in these situations, there is not much that can be done to make up for the decreased value vs the loan taken to purchase the property. The typical options are to file bankruptcy and surrender the property, apply for a loan modification, default and let the property go into foreclosure or ask the lender if they will take a deed in lieu of foreclosure if the property value is less than the loan balance. Best of Luck! Jennifer

A: The price today, is not relevant, unfortunately. The price of the land when purchased was likely higher as there was a real estate boom here in Florida. Prices have dropped dramatically over the past several years. Your parents are stuck with the price the agreed to pay and the fluctuation of the price in the future does not make the agreement illegal.