SLIDELL, La. - A $1.63 property tax bill that never reached its destination in 1996 has turned into a nightmare for Kermit and Dolores Atwood, who are now trying to keep from losing their home over the unpaid notice.

In 2000, the Atwoods learned their four-bedroom home had been sold in a tax sale three years earlier for the $1.63 in unpaid taxes, plus 10 cents interest and $125 in sale costs.

Atwood said the couple learned of the sale about a week after the three-year period in which delinquent taxpayers can reclaim their property had ended.

The bill was sent to a defunct address and returned undelivered to the St. Tammany Parish sheriff's office. Atwood then complained to the sheriff's and assessor's offices that she never received the bill and knew nothing about it. The house, which the couple has owned mortgage-free since 1968, previously was totally state homestead exempt, meaning there was no tax bill, Atwood said.

"The sheriff's office could have easily found us," Atwood said. "We're in the phone book."

Although the State Tax Commission nullified the sale, the couple found out in 2002 — when they attempted to sell the house and got a $90,000 offer, a buyer, Jamie Land Co., had filed suit. The company had bought the property rights from American Land Investments.

In May 2006, State District Judge Patricia Hedges ruled that the property title belongs to the Atwoods. Jamie Land appealed. Last month, a three-judge panel of the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal upheld Hedges' decision. Jamie Land asked the court to rehear the case, but that request was denied last week.

Now, the company plans to ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to take up the case.


WTF!!!!! All that nonsense over less than $2.00??? THIS is why people get fed up with governmental bureacracy and wind up supporting radicals like Chavez!!!

Full story HERE

That's scary!

good lord

I always thought Kermit lives in a swamp?

Flowerz said:

...I had heard that they were trying to "reallocate" alot of that land.

...as far as I'm concerned...merely by the fact that this poor couple has already spent $20,000 on legal fess, they've already "lost". I'm sure that they'll retain their home, after some lawyers and this scumbag land developer gets wealthier.

If I were the governor, I would force closure on the matter, and make the sherrif's department pay for the family's legal fees ...AND fix their home for free!