Just outside Slidell, Dolores and Kermit Atwood live in the house they have owned for decades. It’s a humble house, they paid it off long ago, and they’ve never had to pay taxes on it. However, it recently came to light that in 1996, the house was revalued for $75,100, exactly $100 above the homestead exemption cutoff. The Atwoods would be taxed for the $100 difference and they were billed for $1.63. But there was a problem.

When the addresses were updated from “Rural Route Whatever” to street names to comply with the 911 system, their home address became 4122 Dauphine Street. However, the tax bill–which the Atwoods did not know existed and were not expecting–was sent to the old route address. When it was returned to the assessor’s office marked “address unknown,” it was entered into the books as an unpaid tax debt. Eventually, in July 1997 the house was sold at a tax auction for the $1.63 in unpaid taxes plus 10 cents interest and $125 in various costs. A real estate guy named Jamie Land bought the property a month later from the folks who acquired it at the tax sale.

The Atwoods had a 3-year exemption period during which they could redeem their home from Mr. Land. The problem is they didn’t know it. At no point had they been notified. The first they knew of this monkey business was exactly one week after the exemption period had expired. “We’ve lost our house?” they asked, astonished. “For $1.63?” even more astonished. “For a bill we never received?”

Is there any sanity in the universe, they wondered. How could this happen in America? Too bad, said Mr. Land. Business is business.

When the Tax Commission heard of this foul-up, they voted to undo the mess they had created by nullifying the sale. Mr. Land’s company fought it, saying they had money tied up in the property. The Atwoods were informed that for a certain amount of money, perhaps a few thousand dollars, the Lands would grant them clear title to their home. “Absolutely not,” they protested. “It’s not our problem.”

The Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the tax commission’s right to nullify the tax sale since adequate notice was not given the Atwoods. However, Mr. Land’s company planned to appeal, meaning this could stay tied up in the courts a long time.

Wednesday’s Times-Picayune reports that an anonymous Slidell businessman has stepped forward and paid the Jamie Land Company an undisclosed amount of money, ending this mess. Mr. Land says, “It wasn’t much money,” perhaps implying we should not make a hero of the unknown donor.

A collective sigh of relief and a “thank you” to some unknown person has gone up from the community. We trust the tax assessor’s office will be more careful next time.

This all reminds me of the notice I received some 5 years ago from Tulane Hospital and Clinic that a certain bill was being turned over to a collection agency. The letter was ugly and threatening and most offensive. When I called the hospital’s business office, it turned out they had been sending the bill to a wrong address, making the letter undeliverable. What made the matter almost comical was that the hospital had been sending us additional bills on the same hospitalization, all of them to the correct address and all being paid on time. Had anyone in the business office bothered to look my name up in their records, they could have solved this little matter and saved the company some money and me some grief.

I protested to the collection agency that I owed the money to Tulane and would not pay them. No use. Not only that, but it then appeared on my credit history as though I had defaulted on a debt. I’ve not had to borrow money for anything during this time, thus it has been of no consequence to my knowledge. Still, the memory of it still stings.

I wrote a lengthy letter to the hospital administrator telling what had happened, suggesting he might take a look at his business office’s procedures. That was five years ago; I’m still waiting on a reply.

Check our family’s health history since then and you’ll see we’ve had nothing further to do with that hospital.

Regular readers of this blog will recall an article a few weeks back titled “Tampering with the Mails,” about two bizarre letters that had just come in the mail. The odder of the two was an invitation to take out a home mortgage which was camouflaged to look like an awards letter from a government program announcing that I was entitled to large amounts of cash. Only the fine print revealed it for what it was.

Tuesday, a followup letter to that scam arrived in the mail. On the outside of the envelope in big letters was this announcement: “Notice of Overpayment.” Inside, this opening paragraph: “Our records indicate that you have not responded to our previous attempts to notify you of your eligibility. You must contact us at 1-877-etc,etc before final date, August 16, 2007.”

So what is this “overpayment” they refer to? “Due to recent changes in our mortgage policy guidelines, public records indicate that you may be making larger than necessary payments on your property at 601 Park Ridge Drive.” To avoid further possible overpayments, I should contact my “local assigned specialist” at the number they listed.

I would love to see how they plan to save me money on my mortgage. I have a percentage rate just over 4 percent now.

To their credit this time, the [redacted] Home Mortgage Company of Covington did list a phone number by which I can choose to stop receiving these “prescreened” offers of credit from this and other companies. I phoned 1-888-567-8688 and did just that, giving information to a rather smart computer. The only time I balked was when “she” or “it” asked for my Social Security number, which “she” insisted would be kept in confidence. I kept saying, “No,” so after the second time, she said, “We will try to remove your name from the list without your Social Security number.” Good. I thought you could.

Now if I can get my name removed from the tax records.