Careful checking here. How common is this sort of thing??

PICAYUNE, Miss. (WLOX) - What’s in a number? Well, when it’s the difference between owning your house or an empty lot next door, it’s a lot.

A Picayune family was served notice last week that their home had been sold at a delinquent tax sale for $236. Now, the family is hoping for a solution that will let them keep their house, along with their money.

“As of right now, I do not own my home, Viking Investments does,” said Tiffany Ingram.

Viking Investments picked up the three bedroom, two bath home for a neat $236 at a delinquent tax sale. But they thought they were buying an empty lot.

“I owned the lot next to the house and not the lot the house was on,” said Ingram.

It seems the builder, Benchmark Home Builders built the house on the wrong lot. And since the builder sold the house, the company stopped paying taxes. Ingram, however, was paying taxes on an imaginary house next door.

Pearl River County Tax Assessor documents show there were homes on both lots in the Hunters Trace Subdivsion, even though one was clearly empty.

“They documented that there was a house on the vacant lot, and a house, obviously, where my house is,” said Ingram. “Instead of fixing it and saying that the house was in the wrong place.”

Meanwhile, the delinquent tax notices were not being delivered to anybody, and the county put the land up for sale. That brings us to last week.

I walked up to my front door, and I saw a note sticking out and it said Viking Investments and it gave me three days to leave,” said Ingram.

Making matters worse, the family had put the home up for sale recently and the ownership snafu has scared away five potential buyers.

Ingram isn’t getting answers from the county, builder or the investment company that now owns her house.

“They’re letting me freak out and feel like I’m homeless, and I just don’t think that’s right,” said Ingram.

WLOX News Now spoke to the developer and the investor who bought the property. Both assured us that they would find a way to resolve the problem without Ingram losing her house or any money.

An official with Pearl River County said the Tax Sale would be voided, but transferring the land deeds would be more difficult.

“Nobody has called me and said ‘hey, Miss Ingram, this is what we’re doing to fix this. We’ve got it handled, don’t freak out.’ Nobody’s reached out to me,” she said.

We asked the Tax Assessor to explain how the empty lot was assessed as if it had a house on it, we were referred to the County Attorney who didn’t return our request for comment.

There’s even more confusion about what’s where in the neighborhood. The address on Tiffany Ingram’s mailbox is number 88.

But when the power company came to hook up electricity, the worker told her the address was listed as number 80. Now, Ingram says she’s learned her house number should be 78.

link: https://www.wlox.com/2021/10/1...-housing-lot-mix-up/

House in Texas built on wrong lot also.

These are good, scary stories, so the news loves them.

But this will all get worked out. The howmeowners will worry and, rightfully, be angry, but they won't lose their house.

The real messes come when this kind of error isn't discovered for decades and the land has been "owned" by many people in the meantime.

I thought the story was funny since I was not the subject. It reflects bureaucratic incompetence and the willingness to be careless. Our government at work.

Well if they don't fix it I look forward to the video footage of the rampaging Killdozer!

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
I thought the story was funny since I was not the subject. It reflects bureaucratic incompetence and the willingness to be careless. Our government at work.

It looks like the problem originated with the builder, who documented the deed improperly. If my reading of the story is right, that starts with the builder, but really falls on the title insurer, whose job it is to make sure all of that is done right and the real estate sale is documented properly. If this really goes to hell, they will be the ones on the hook via the title policy.

But the taxing authority could have detected the problem sooner, although that isn't really their job.

Isn't this the reason you pay for title insurance? Wouldn't their title insurance company be on the hook?

.[/QUOTE]

But the taxing authority could have detected the problem sooner, although that isn't really their job.[/QUOTE]

I found that out a number of years ago while appealing a huge jump in my property taxes, something like 40% in one year. Seems that the city somehow assessed my house and lot as lakefront despite being about an eighth of a mile from the shoreline.

When I went in front of the appeals board the chairperson said there was a mistake, by looking at the plat map he saw the problem. When I questioned how this happened, he admitted that if I had not appealed the assessment it probably would not have been caught and I would have kept getting the higher assessment.

We had heavy equipment show up and start cutting a road for a housing development.

On our property.

That we had not sold.

They were about 2 miles off.

Once they were shown where to go, they left without fixing anything.

Took a long time to get them to come back and fix the issue. Removing the road, seeding and planting trees. Still working on recovering attorney fees.

This is why title insurance is always a good thing to have. They should have caught the issue on transfer at the sale, and should be on the hook to make things right now.

When we bought our house in Virginia, it was October. The next year we get a delinquent property tax notice. It was for January to September! After some back and forth the country owned up to their mistake. The builder had already paid the tax for when he owned it. However, I requested and got a letter stating that the county had goofed.
Next year, the same bill with penalties added!
The country got a registered reply with copies of their admission of having goofed. When we sold, the new owner got a copy of the file. Just in case

the developer must have been part of the 74% the state is ignoring

74% of the voters in MS voted to have weed legalized and a mayor of a little town found a legal loophole to prevent it and took it to the state Supreme Court and had it nullified

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The matter is up to Gov. Reeves. The bill is sitting in his office. The Mayor of Madison, which is an affluent community by Mississippi standards objected to medicinal weed and the Supreme Court went along with her. She has been Mayor since 1981 and is determined to "keep pot shops out of Madison".