The government of Kalamazoo County, Michigan is about to hear one hell of an uproar in defense of a mother they’ve literally stolen a house from.
Deborah Calley paid $146,000 in cash for her dream home in 2010. She didn’t take out a mortgage or borrow money. She paid for it upfront, which means she owns it. There is no dispute over it.
But now the county has foreclosed on her home and is selling it via auction. Why? Because she missed a single tax payment in 2011 because the notices were addressed and mailed to banks Calley is unaffiliated with. She’s the homeowner and the county failed to get the notices to her. And that’s not all.
Calley says that when she paid her taxes in 2012, nobody mentioned anything about the missing tax payment from a year earlier.
“When I paid the taxes in 2012 right there in Richland, no one said, ‘Oh, well you still owe money for 2011,’” Calley told WITI. “So, I didn’t really have a clue. I thought I was right on time.”
Calley not only had no clue that she had missed a payment because the county screwed up the whole mailing process, she also had a good reason because she suffered a head injury in a car accident that left bruises on her brain. To recover comfortably and make raising her two kids simpler, Calley bought the house she always wanted. But her brain injury may have caused her to accidentally miss a payment, a payment that the county failed time and time again to notify her about.
When the county swooped in and kicked Calley and her kids out of their own home, she offered to pay the missing payment in full. But the greedy county only saw bigger dollar signs and decided to auction off the house instead of making up for their own inability to properly address a piece of mail. Needless to say, Calley is torn up about the whole situation.
To add insult to injury, the county intends to keep all the profit from selling the home. Calley doesn’t get a dime of it even though she’s the one who paid for the house in full and is the rightful owner. Thus far, the highest bid is $80,000, far more money than the county would make if they just let Calley make the missed payment.
Calley’s real estate agent, Becky Doorlag, says if she loses her home, Calley will lose the only thing she owns and the government would be putting her future and the future of her children in jeopardy.
She’ll pay it today if they’ll let her… The government will take her home — the only thing that she has that she owns that’s paid off free and clear. That is her future and her retirement and her kids’ future. She will lose it to the government unless the judge has mercy.
This a heartbreaking story that has government overreach written all over it. Calley should not be forced out of her home because of a mistake the county made. Calley has paid her taxes every year except in 2011 and has offered to pay the amount in full. Clearly, she wants to make things right. Yet the county refuses because they see an opportunity to make money off a home they didn’t have to even purchase.
Kalamazoo County in Michigan thinks it can get away with doing this evil action without consequences. Let’s show them otherwise and let’s try to help Deborah Calley get her home back.
Feel free to email the Kalamazoo County government by clicking here and filling out the form. You can also find contact information for the members of the Board of Commissioners by clicking here. Contact info for other elected county officials can be found by clicking here.
Perhaps if Americans rally around Calley in the face of this injustice, we can get her and her family back in their home where they rightfully belong. Because if this can happen to one family, it can happen to anyone.
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