Administrative Foreclosures

Ohio Supreme Court Green Lights Fast-Track Process That Gives Homes to Developers But Fails to Compensate Owners and Taxpayers

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In 2019, Taxpayers lost at least $11.25 million, While Homeowners and Banks lost up to $77 Million, But Title to Revamped Houses Remains Sound

This article provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join our free mailing list as this helps us provide more public service reporting.     The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that an unusual foreclosure process that can result in people’s homes being sold without compensation for their equity should remain legal in the Buckeye State. However, in a recently released opinion the state justices couldn’t agree on the reasoning behind it. 

Justice Judith French authored the lead opinion, joined by Justices Michael Donnelly and Robert Hendrickson. (Justice Robert A. Hendrickson, of the Twelfth District Court of Appeals, replaced Justice Melody Stewart.) They declined to comment on the constitutional issues presented by the case involving what are called “administrative foreclosures,” saying that they would not stop the process because the law governing these procedures was not “patently and unambiguously” unconstitutional. 

Not to be confused with expedited foreclosures, administrative foreclosures send abandoned properties to a county’s board of revision, a committee that usually considers home values for property owners wanting to contest their taxes.

Tens of thousands of Ohioans told to repay unemployment benefits

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After waiting weeks for unemployment insurance payments, some are receiving letters demanding they pay back thousands; software troubles continue to dog system

Marnie Behan got a surprising message in April from Ohio’s Department of Jobs and Family Services about her ongoing unemployment payments. Instead of sending her next unemployment payment, they said she needed to pay the Department. The bill was almost $3,000. She had 45 days to repay it, or the case would be sent to the Ohio Attorney General. Since March 15, new claims have inundated the unemployment system at a level not seen since The Great Depression.

Civil Rights

Ohio hospitals remain mum on changes to local bed and ventilator counts; uncertainty affects local patients

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The Ohio Department of Health gets daily updates on the total number of beds and ventilators that could be available for COVID-19 patients at hospitals throughout the state. But so far the agency hasn’t provided any hospital-by-hospital breakdown, and the agencies that collect capacity information on their behalf have also declined to release their assessments. The result: Ohioans don’t know how many beds and ventilators are available where they live. Timely and meaningful knowledge could benefit Ohioans from a health perspective, while also helping them understand the range of public policy issues surrounding the crisis. 

The availability of resources to care for COVID-19 patients could mean life or death for thousands of Ohioans. “It’s what keeps me awake at night,” said Ohio Department of Health (ODH) director of health Amy Acton, MD, MPH of her fear of running out of beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment.

Civil Rights

Eye on Ohio Launches Project to Combat Misinformation and Disinformation on the Internet

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Shana Black, Eye on Ohio's First Draft Fellow. On Thursday, a Cleveland man tweeted a picture saying that that local residents had taken to the streets to end COVID-19. The internet launched a vitriolic response, condemning the city for further spreading the disease. But no one, in fact, had marched. The tweet came from a satire account that had posted an old picture of a Cleveland Cavalier championship victory.

dark money

Dark Money Dominated Ohio’s Nuclear Subsidy Saga

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FirstEnergy Solutions paid nearly $2 million to at least one group, but most other data remains hidden. After-the-fact filings show that FirstEnergy’s generation subsidiary paid nearly $2 million to Generation Now, one of the special interest groups that orchestrated ads, political donations and other efforts behind Ohio’s nuclear and coal bailout. But legal loopholes make it harder to find out the total spent and who else was behind xenophobic advertising, dueling voter petitions, alleged intimidation and other claims of foul play. And none of those actions fully disclosed who was behind them. The scant public filings that are available show additional connections to FirstEnergy Solutions (now Energy Harbor), as well as the law firm of an outspoken legislator who has long fought the state’s clean energy standard, and others with high-level political influence.

Homepage Featured

Campaign contributions pay off for Ohio utilities and coal interests

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Nuclear and coal bailout is the latest in a line of favorable policy actions that shield noncompetitive plants from competition. Utility, nuclear and coal interests are big players in Ohio politics, giving about $3 million to Ohio political campaigns in 2018, according to data from the National Institute on Money in Politics. The industry interests have long been active politically. But just as competitive markets began coming into their own around 2010, the pattern of campaign contributions also shifted. Donations to Ohio campaigns from the utility, nuclear and coal industries in 2010 were more than double the amount for 2008.

Taxpayers Lose Out on at Least $11.25 Million, Homeowners and Banks Lose up to $80 Million in Little-known Foreclosure Process That Skips Sheriff’s Sales

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This story was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

For years, Elliot Feltner’s father-in-law operated an auto body shop in Cleveland. Later in life, a stroke debilitated the old mechanic, and his care proved a heavy burden for Feltner’s wife, Linda. 

Not long after burying her father, in 2009, Linda Feltner discovered her chronic cough was more than just bronchitis: it was cancer. She died three years later. 

When Elliot Feltner finally sorted through the medical bills and the loss of his only family, he discovered the body shop property he inherited owed considerable back taxes, which he couldn’t afford. So he put the shop up for sale and told the county he’d use the proceeds to pay off the debt. 

But after signing a buyer, the sale fell through because Feltner discovered the property had already been sold to the county land bank, he says without his knowledge. 

“They called me one day and said you don’t own the property. Someone else does.

Commerical Property Tax Loophole

Ohio Supreme Court Deals Blow to Sales Designed to Take Advantage of a Property Tax Loophole

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On Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that evidence of a commercial real estate transaction depends on the intent of the parties and the building transferred, not the structure of the sale. The court invalidated the "drop LLC" sale of 4121 Palmer Park Circle East, which would have deprived public coffers of about $273,000 a year in tax money, based on a lower valuation of the property. Eye on Ohio featured the case in its August 2019 investigation of the commercial property tax loophole in Ohio, which costs the median Franklin County commercial business property owner an average of at least $4,893 per year. A property owner with a $100,000 property in Columbus' tax district 10, where Palmer House is located, pays at least $1,800 extra. In December 2014, Palmer Square sold an apartment building to PPG Manhattan Real Estate Partners LLC.

entity sales

How Much are you Overpaying in Property Tax?

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Commercial Property Sales Loophole Costs Small Business Owners Thousands

This investigation made possible via a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. 

When Palmer Square, LLC recently wanted to sell their apartment building at 4121 Palmer Park Circle East in Columbus, they went through all the usual hoops that most homeowners are familiar with: they executed a purchase contract with the buyer, Manhattan Real Estate Partners, LLC, they ordered an inspection, and they obtained title insurance. 

But selling the property outright would have cost $65,000 in conveyance fee taxes, and annual property tax would bump up an additional $309,000 dollars per year, with the property now valued at the agreed to purchase price of $35.25 million instead of the auditor’s value of $24.5 million. So instead, Palmer Square formed Palmer House Borrower, LLC. That new business received the property at 4121 Palmer Park Circle and its mortgage. Then they technically sold the business, and not the property. Conveyance tax due to Franklin County: $0. 

Palmer Square is one of hundreds of such property deals taking place throughout the state of Ohio every year, and they are legal.

anonymous donors

Q&A: Experts Discuss How to Find Undisclosed Campaign Donors

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On Tuesday, a panel of top researchers, policy experts, and legal minds discussed lessons learned from the 2018 election and how groups- both liberal and conservative- have gotten better at hiding the source of campaign messages. (See video below.)

PANEL 1: Following dark money trail through 2020

Michael Beckel, Issue One, Manager of Research, Investigations and Policy AnalysisBio: Michael’s latest project, “Dark Money Illuminated” revealed that 75% of dark money spending since Citizens United came from just 15 dark money groups. Before joining Issue One in March 2017, Michael spent roughly a decade as an award-winning journalist following the money in politics, including stints at the Center for Public Integrity and Center for Responsive Politics. Anna Massoglia, The Center for Responsive Politics, Nonprofits and FARA ResearcherBio: Anna researches foreign influence and dark money in politics for the Center for Responsive Politics, working on the OpenSecrets’ Foreign Lobby Watch project, dark money database and FCC political advertising database. Anna holds a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia and worked previously at Bloomberg BNA.