ROSSVILLE – In the trailer parks off Schmidt Road, where the roofs leak and the doors don’t quite close, residents wonder where they’ll live next.
For at least three years, nobody paid property taxes on 18 trailers in the Stoney Pointe Mobile Home Park and Blue Ridge Estates. The parks are around the corner from each other. Both are owned by a man named Tom Lackey, of Roswell, Ga.
The combined back-tax debt for these trailers is $20,500, according to the Walker County tax commissioner. Though he owns the parks, Lackey does not own all of the mobile homes, property records show. Still, half of those 18 trailers belong to him, with a debt of $10,200.
Last week, county workers taped yellow sheets of paper to those 18 mobile homes. “NOTICE,” they read. “This property has been seized.” The county will auction the trailers off on May 1.
A county notice sign is seen on the lower left side of a trailer in the Stoney Pointe Mobile Home Park on Sunday, April 15, 2018 in Rossville, Ga. Eighteen trailers in the Stoney Pointe and Blue Ridge Estates mobile home parks, located around the corner from each other, have a combined back-tax debt of $20,500. The 18 mobile homes have been seized by Walker County and are set to be auctioned off on May 1. The sign reads: “NOTICE This property has been seized under levy by the tax commissioner / ex-officio sheriff of Walker County for delinquent taxes.”Residents said this problem isn’t their fault. They’re only renters. And it’s not that they didn’t pay their rent, they said. They paid about $600 a month. The problem is, Lackey hasn’t held up his end.