The house at 4758 S. Princeton, just west of the Dan Ryan, was old and needed renovating, but it was the only major asset LuBertha Ridley had. Then the county let someone take it away from her.
The annual taxes on her property, which she owned outright, weren’t high–about $21 a year. But for some reason she missed a payment in 1996. The county sent her a form letter informing her of the delinquency and warning that if she didn’t pay the bill she could lose her property. It’s not clear whether she ever got that letter, since such notices are often sent to the wrong address. But two years later, on April 7, 1998, the property was sold for about $300 to National Indemnity, a real estate company that specializes in buying tax-delinquent property. Shortly after that the county sent another letter to Ridley, notifying her that the property had been bought at a scavenger sale. To redeem it, the letter pointed out, she only had to pay the back taxes–$21. She never responded to that letter either.
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The guardian’s office had been down this road before. Mary Lowe once owned a home on the far south side of the city, and because of mental incompetence, according to Peter Schmiedel, the deputy public guardian, couldn’t understand she’d fallen behind on her property taxes. “When we took the Lowe case we did an investigation, and we found that her mental incompetence was common knowledge,” he says. “We spoke to her mail carrier, and she said, ‘Yes, that’s the crazy lady. We’d go by there sometimes, and she’d be outside naked.’ We did more digging and found out that she had a long history of hospitalization in various state hospitals.”
SKM’s Smith says that voiding the sale would unfairly punish his client, who did nothing wrong. He points out that companies that buy up delinquent properties–generally known as scavengers, a label they disdain–benefit the city and the county. “The press likes to paint us as villains, but we really do a great service,” says one buyer who asked not to be named. “In many cases we take run-down property that’s been delinquent for years and we put it back on the tax rolls. How is that so bad?”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jon Randolph.
