Land bank takes man’s $500 home
The police and city code enforcement officers kicked Travis Sherwood out of a house on East 5th Avenue around 6 p.m. Thursday, leaving him to live in his truck.
Sherwood bought the house from the previous owner through a quit-claim deed for $500 in November 2016. But there was no water and electric service. The house was boarded up. And the previous owner had racked up thousands of dollars in liens on the property.
In August, the Franklin County land bank took the house through tax foreclosure.
But Sherwood, 34, says he’s been unfairly removed, that the land bank acquired the property out from under him and that he lost his job while he was trying to raise enough money to pay the back taxes and get the utilities turned back on. He said he found the property for sale on Craigslist.
Columbus officials say he has no business being there.
“The land bank has been trying to contact him since August, to which he hasn’t responded,” said Cynthia Rickman, spokeswoman for the Columbus Department of Development. She said the U.S. Postal Service couldn’t deliver the mail because it
appeared the house was vacant.
“He does not own the property now. He has no standing,” Rickman said.
The Central Ohio Community Improvement Corp. — the Franklin County land bank — filed for tax foreclosure in February. The complaint said that notices were sent. Rickman said the city also tried to call Sherwood.
“He has not been reachable,” Rickman said of Sherwood. She said Sherwood has pulled doors and boards off the house to get inside.
“It’s an unsafe, uninhabitable property,” she said.
Rickman said close to $14,000 in taxes and attorney fees were owed on the property. And there were other federal and state liens on the property totalling $200,000, she said.
According to an affidavit from Dec. 8, 2016, a code enforcement officer found that no one was living at the address and that no utilities were being billed. The house was boarded up, the officer said.
Sherwood said he has been living at the property for a month, even though the land
bank owns it and he has no power or running water. He said he has been working to restore the electricity. He also said he never received any notices in the mail. The court complaint said Sherwood was notified by publication on March 2.
“The entire electrical systems needed to be rebuilt from the ground up,” he said. He said the house was sitting empty for 10 years before he acquired it. “There were mountains of garbage I had to shovel out,” he said.
Sherwood said he had no idea that there were $200,000 in liens on the property. He said he was fired as a forklift driver at Amazon in Etna three months ago.
On Friday afternoon, he stood outside
the home with Robin Shover, 30, who he said was his fiancee.
They said they slept in the front seats of his truck, a Ford Expedition, at a truck stop off Interstate 70 in Licking County Thursday night. He said he wasn’t sure where they’d go Friday night.
He said their beds, computer, tools, plus appliances, remain in the house. Sherwood, who said he deals with anxiety and depression, began crying. He said he wants the judgment vacated because he was never served.
“All I ever wanted was a fair shake, to build a decent life,” he said.