Investor to Condo Owners: Pay $80K to Use Driveway

June 10, 2010 — -- The slumping real estate market has offered opportunities to savvy land investors, but a group of condo owners in Oklahoma said they got the raw end of someone else's bargain when they found that they couldn't access the driveway in front of their building.

"We're being held up for ransom here -- this is ridiculous," said Hedi Lunday, 77.

Lunday is one of four condo owners in the Timberdale Estates development in Edmond, Okla., who were temporarily prevented from driving their cars into their garages after a land investment company that bought land abutting their homes erected concrete barriers on the driveway for one afternoon last month. Lunday's fellow building residents include other elderly people, including a man who walks with a cane.

The company, RJS Properties LLC, bought the land at a Oklahoma County tax sale in 2008 for $1,584, according to Oklahoma property records, after the land's developer failed to pay taxes on it. The company later offered to sell condo owners the property for $80,000 but the offer was rejected.

"It was a fair deal," said Ron Edwards, an agent for RJS whose wife owns the Guthrie, Okla.-based company.

Edwards said he had barriers placed on the land in an attempt to convince the condo owners to change their minds about the RJS offer. The barriers came down after less than a day under an order from local fire officials, who said the barriers blocked emergency vehicles' access to the homes.

Condo owners later won a temporary restraining order to stop Edwards from erecting any new barriers and say they're now fighting to keep it permanent.

That particular legal battle is part of a larger war that residents waged against RJS and the county over the sale for two years.

Residents were stunned to learn two years ago that their condo association didn't own the property -- Oklahoma County officials said the developer failed to cede the property to the association -- and that taxes on it hadn't been paid. Arguing that they didn't receive proper notification about the tax sale, residents sued the county and RJS in 2008 in an attempt to cancel the sale.

Late last month, a judge ruled against them.