The other day the link appeared on Twitter for “Frustrated Owner Bulldozes Home” from WLTW in Cincinnati, Ohio. And of course, I had to check it out.
The basic of the story is that the home owner, Terry Hoskins, had an IRS lien placed on his home and had some business issues which caused his business to go into foreclosure. He was angry for losing his home over what he felt was bad business practices by the bank so he bulldozed it. I was shocked at what he did but as I read the comments on the story I realized that there needs to be a little analysis of the story.
His goal? “Well, to probably make banks think twice before they try to take someones home, and if they are going to take it wrongly, the end result will be them tearing their house down like I did mine,” Hoskins told WLTW.
Really? The bank is going to think twice about taking a home “wrongly”. Well that may be right, but the numbers on this story aren’t adding up.
photo by Nathan Bauer and used with permission
- Hoskins claims his Moscow, Ohio, home was valued at $350,000. However a drive-by BPO of the property established the value of $240,000 for the Sheriff’s auction – which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday – and his commercial property is estimated to be worth $1,000,000 and scheduled to auction in early March.
- Just this morning the Columbus 4i news was reporting that “he never missed a payment” and of course the announcers were talking about how sad it was. Ummm … really? The IRS only places a lien on a home to reclaim back taxes. So obviously he missed a payment to the IRS. Also, according to the Clermont County Auditor’s Office, Hoskins owns three parcels of land in the County and combined he owes $22,009.99 in unpaid property taxes. Would that help the schools in those communities? But that’s right he never missed a payment.
- Even if he NEVER missed a payment on the HOME he obviously missed payments on his business loan. And to secure the loan from the bank he used his home as collateral. He basically took out a second-mortgage on his house to develop his business.
- His $170,000 offer to pay off the $160,000 loan he had on the house is totally irrelevant. Now if he owed $160,000 on the business and he offered them $170,000 then it would have been fine.
Okay, okay, so I’ve picked on Hoskins enough. What can we learn from this so to keep it from happening again?
- The most obvious thing it: pay your bills. I know it sounds really boring. However if you read your mortgage there are several people that have the ability to foreclose on your home. Don’t pay your home owner’s association fee, guess what they “could” foreclose on you. And the federal, state, city, or county tax districts do have the right to foreclose on you for not paying taxes. (Not as common, they usually place a lien on the home so they get paid when you sell, but it can happen.)
- You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We’ve all heard a variation on this at some time – and few of us more often than others – but it can be very true. Giving ultimatums usually doesn’t achieve your goal.
- Play with fire and you’ll get burned. Hoskins is getting his 15-minutes of fame in this situation. However, he’s going to being paying for these action for a very-long time. His obligation to repay these loans didn’t go away, but one of his largest assets is now a pile of rubble. Oops.
