taking advantage of the blind!

Please read the below Chicago Tribune article and pass to OTHERS in the community.

By Andy Grimm

Cedar Lake officials to offer Dolores Pittman a 'life estate'

Officials in the small Indiana town of Cedar Lake are taking action to make sure a blind woman can stay in the house she lost in a property dispute with an investor who bought her home of 55 years for $43 at a tax sale.

The Town Council this week voted unanimously to pursue buying the land from Clayton Pullins, a resident of neighboring Porter County, Ind., who purchased the land at a county tax auction in 2009 and last year moved to evict 67-year-old Dolores Pittman from the house she had lived in since she was 12.

The town will use municipal condemnation powers to buy the land — which is surrounded by property that includes the town's government complex and a park — if Pullins refuses the town's initial offer, council President Randell Niemeyer said Thursday.

State law would force Pullins to sell the house for a fair market price, determined by third-party appraisals, Niemeyer said. When the sale closes, Cedar Lake officials will offer Pittman a "life estate," a legal arrangement that would allow her to stay in the house for the rest of her days. Afterward the land would become part of the surrounding park, Niemeyer said.

"Mrs. Pittman has lived there a long time, and this is an arrangement that, to me, serves the public interest, and a human interest," Niemeyer said. "She'll be able to stay there for the rest of her life."

Pullins' attorney did not respond to requests for comment from the Tribune.

Pittman said she was cautiously optimistic after spending a year fighting in court to keep her house.Thursday, she said she was still packing her belongings after already moving some of her things to a rented house about 2 miles away.

"I'll have to see how things work out. All of this seems like it's been going on for so long," Pittman said as she sat in her tiny, near-empty living room, surrounded by a half-dozen cats. "Who knows how long this will take."

Pittman said she did hope to return to the house and stay.

"That's all I ever wanted in all this. To stay here the rest of my life, or until I had to go to a nursing home," she said, tearing up.

Pittman's family moved into the house in 1958, when Cedar Lake's namesake body of water was surrounded by camps owned by church groups. The Pittmans were members of a church that owned land on the lakefront and leased lots to congregation members who wanted to build cottage-type homes on them.

The Pittmans rented the house from another congregation member and eventually purchased the small, two-bedroom house. In the 1970s, the church sold all of its property to the town but left the parcel under the Pittmans' house out of the transaction, though no transfer to the Pittmans was ever recorded. The Pittmans had paid $10 per year to lease the land, first to the church and then to the town.

Starting in 2006, changes to Indiana tax law meant the land — which still was deeded to the church officially — started to get tax bills. Those bills apparently went to the church and were ignored, and eventually the land was put up for tax sale. Pittman didn't learn the property had been sold, she said, until she received an eviction notice from Pullins.

Pittman, who hasn't worked since she lost her sight to a degenerative disease about 30 years ago, eventually gave up her court fight to keep the land. She had planned to pay for rent and utilities at her new home with donated money that has poured in as her predicament received national attention. Now she might use the money for some much-needed renovations at the house before she moves back.

The town likely will end up paying far more than the $43 Pullins paid for the house, which is about 200 yards from the lakefront, Niemeyer said.

"I think that's a fair assumption," he said. "Real estate around here is a little more expensive than that. … It would have been a lot better if we could have got it at the tax sale."

Stay Safe and Alert!!!

Later, Leroy Duncan

Beat Facilitator

25th District Police Department