Mitch Goldstein | Coach Mitch | August 7th, 2007Tax lien nightmare ends in Slidell
Local man pays to settle suit over house
Wednesday, July 18, 2007 By Charlie Chapple
A Slidell-area couple whose house was sold for a $1.63 property tax bill they knew nothing about will have clear title to their home today, thanks to a local businessman who paid to settle a years-old lawsuit with the land company that claimed their property.
“I don’t even know who to thank,” said Dolores Atwood. “But I’m relieved and happy that this is finally over . . . I’m relieved and tired.”
Atwood and her husband, Kermit, will again be the unquestioned owners of their house at 4122 Dauphine St. because a St. Tammany Parish businessman and his partner volunteered to pay Jamie Land Co. to settle the suit that has kept the property in legal limbo for seven years, said their attorney, Gary Duplechain.
The settlement was signed Tuesday at 11:30 a.m., Duplechain said, and paperwork was to be filed at the parish courthouse in Covington later Tuesday and today to clear the title to the property to the Atwoods.
Duplechain said the businessman, who wants to remain anonymous for now, stepped forward Monday after reading a story in The Times-Picayune about the couple’s plight. The attorney said he could not disclose the settlement amount.
Jamie Land Co. President James Lindsay II said the agreement calls for the amount of the settlement to remain undisclosed.
“But it wasn’t a lot of money,” he said. “We’ve been willing to settle this thing all along.”
In 1996, the couple’s four-bedroom, two-bath home just north of Slidell was re-valued at $75,100, or $100 above the state homestead exemption, so they owed property taxes for the first time.
A tax bill for $1.63 was sent to the Atwoods at a rural route address that no longer existed because it had been changed to a street address with the advent of the parish’s 911 emergency telephone system. The bill was returned undelivered to the Sheriff’s Office, which sold the property at its annual tax sale in July 1997 for the $1.63 in delinquent taxes, 10 cents interest and $125 in costs associated with the tax sale.
Jamie Land bought the rights to the property a month later from the company that acquired it at the tax sale.
Dolores Atwood said the couple found out that their property had been sold seven days after the three-year redemption period that allows delinquent taxpayers to reclaim their property.
Atwood complained to the assessor’s and sheriff’s offices that the couple had not received and were unaware of the property tax bill. Assessor Patricia Schwarz Core then got the state Tax Commission to nullify the tax sale because the bill was mailed to a nonexistent address.
Jamie Land sued the commission and the Atwoods to reclaim the property. The company also filed a notice of pending legal action against the property. The notice was similar to a lien and prevented the couple from selling their mortgage-free house in 2002 for $90,000, Atwood said. The notice also prevented the couple from using their property to borrow money to repair their home, which was uninsured, after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, she said.
Atwood said she has endured “seven years of hell” because of the $1.63 tax bill and the lawsuit by Jamie Land.
With the title to their property back in hand, “we can start trying to repair the house,” Atwood said. She was also told by state authorities Monday that she can still apply for Road Home money to help repair her home.
“I’m tired of living in a FEMA trailer,” she said.
The settlement calls for the company to drop its lawsuit against the Atwoods and the Tax Commission and drop any claims to the property, Duplechain said.
The state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal last month upheld the commission’s right to nullify the tax sale because proper notice wasn’t given to the Atwoods. The court last week refused to rehear the case, and the company was preparing to ask the state Supreme Court to review the case.
Although the company had lost its court battles, Duplechain said it’s better to settle than to take a chance on court decisions being reversed.
“Whenever someone volunteers to pay to resolve pending litigation,” the offer should be accepted, he said.
“I advised her to settle and she had no objections,”Duplechain said. “She started crying when I told her about it. She’s happy to get it over with.”
Tax Commission attorney Deborah L. Crain said the agency was prepared to continue defending its authority to nullify tax sales. But the settlement is the best move for the Atwoods, she said.
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Coach Mitch’s REFLECTIONS
What a story! I did not edit anything.
You will notice that the government made the error and that the government did not pay the legal bills for the Atwoods. Government just says, “Ooops.”
The real culprit is the law itself.
Giving legal “Notice” is to merely place an ad in the local newspaper. What if you don’t read that newspaper? You lose your property because the government does not want to bother looking for you.
If I had the power, I would change the rules of giving “Notice” to be that the government MUST do a comprehensive search, similar to a skip tracing company. If you can be found, then the government should try to find you. Add the cost onto the taxes, but do not take a persons property unless and until that person has said that they do not want the property and they sign a quit claim deed over to the county.
Boy oh boy, if I get elected to the legislature – watch out.
See Coach Mitch’s “Ridiculously Simple System…” ™ for details.
Take it easy,
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