Sharmaine Miller and her husband Pernell bought the three-story home in the Lawndale neighborhood in 2005 as a place to raise a family. A Chicago family was forced to pay $65,000 after they were nearly evicted from their dream home they lived in for 18 years because it was built on the wrong lot.
But a builder made a mistake and built the house on lot 38, which he doesn’t own, instead of lot 39. Years later, the Millers received a letter in 2019 informing them that their property would be sold for unpaid taxes as they had done. been paying the property tax bill on the wrong lot, according to ABC Chicago.
Sharmaine Miller and Pernel were Forced to pay $65,000 after almost being kicked out of their dream home
The family was left devastated and struggling to think of options before settling with a private company that bought the back taxes. Sharmaine Miller said: ‘We just wanted a place our family could call home, we wanted to stay in our community and we wanted a place where our son could rest and we had no worries.
“They told us that we could be evicted, that we could lose the house.” The taxes on the lot her house is built on went unpaid for years and went unpaid, at which point a private company bought out the debt and told the family they had to move.
They had to pay $43,000 plus another $22,000 in legal fees to keep them from being thrown out of their dream home. “If we wanted to keep our house and we had to pay for the mistakes of others,” she added. All of the documentation the couple received, including the survey plan, deed, building permit, mortgage, and title insurance, was listed on the correct lot 39.
The Millers believed that the house they lived in was on the right ground until their world fell apart. And the builder who made the mistake and built it on lot 38 is said to be out of business.
Sharmaine Miller said, “There should be checks and balances from many different people.” The family received tax bills for Lot 39 for 11 years and the Cook County Assessor wrongly assessed the lot as having a home on it.
He fixed the problem in 2017 but didn’t point it out to the Millers, but they realized something was wrong when their tax bill suddenly dropped. The Cook County Assessor’s Office admitted to the property tax error, saying, “Steps taken during a previous administration resulted in an assessment error that has since been corrected.”
The authorities added that they “will support the family by providing any necessary documentation in their efforts to rectify the situation.” The family insisted that they are owed a refund since they paid taxes on a vacant lot at the same rate as if they owned a house, but are not entitled to one due to the Illinois statute of limitations.
Sharmaine Miller said: ‘Everyone involved must make us whole. We don’t deserve this, make us whole.’ The situation left the couple stressed with Pernell Miller saying: “I’m feeling anxious, nervous and upset about what’s going to happen to us.”
The Cook County Clerk, who registered the Millers’ deed, said: “The main cause of this problem is the fact that the house was built on the wrong property in 2005.” “Even if the couple had contacted the clerk’s office years ago, the clerks would have had no way of determining that there was another property in question.”
The family now owns both pieces of land and is looking at legal options. But their lawyer has informed them that they cannot sue the builder because he is now out of business and the statute of limitations has passed.
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