Sunrise: Everyone's next-door neighbors

For Roger Heil, the problem went from living next door to a disheveled house to living next door to a disheveled house that now had wild inhabitants slithering and hopping into his yard. In an otherwise tidy neighborhood, the vacant house next door with walls of cinder blocks was so unkempt that snakes and very large rabbits started taking over the yard and spilling into his.

Heil is a jolly retiree who smiles even when talking about unpleasant things like snakes and messy yards. He said he began maintaining the neighboring yard after the "three high-schoolers with weed wackers" the city sent to do the job failed to meet his standards. He even parked his camper on the property after he started taking care of it.

He didn't ask permission from the owners to clean the yard, or to park his trailer.

"I'd like to think I got something coming to me for keeping the yard," Heil said, as to whether he was worried about the owners coming to Havre and finding his camper in their yard.

Shaylee Lewis is Heil's neighbor two houses over on the other side. She and her husband were interested in buying the building as an office for their heating and air-conditioning business or as a rental after fixing it up.

But it didn't matter what the Lewises wanted to do with the house.

Shaylee Lewis said she called someone associated with the company who owns the house.

She obtained documents from the Hill County treasurer and then scoured the Internet until she found a number to go with the only human name that was on the paperwork. She called and spoke to a man who seemed as surprised that she found his number as she was at the astronomical price he said "his client" believed he could get for the house, she said.

"They feel like it's worth more than a $100,000," Lewis said, before saying the conversation ended quickly as she returned to reality.

The tax deed for the house shows that the current owner paid a total of $1,602.93 for it.

The short conversation between Lewis and the man happened more than two years ago. The house is still vacant, Heil is still keeping up the yard, and no owners have stepped foot in the neighborhood in years.

The company that owns the house between Heil and Lewis is named Sunrise Financial Group LLC. Not much is known about the company because, apparently, the people associated with it don't talk to the public about the business and their incorporation documents go in circles - the company is managed by another company which is managed by another company. Personnel at the Secretary of State's office said that the managing LLCs can very well be the owners and in similar cases often are.

The investigation indicates the company goes to great lengths to remain unknown.

Public records indicate Sunrise will buy just about anything available at tax lien sales - homes, apartment complexes, trailers, empty lots.

A drive past their properties illustrates that they neglect their properties. Minimal to no attempts are made to keep the properties presentable, much less repair them. The eyesore, or blight, of neglected properties in and around Havre is a major concern in the community.

Havre City Councilman Andrew Brekke, speaking about the blight of dilapidated properties within the city limits, said the city is aware of some "very noticeable spots in Havre." The topic of blight has been an "ongoing conversation" among city leaders for a long time, he added.

Real estate agent Kim Cripps is worried about the properties Sunrise owns. She said Sunrise's neglected properties affect everyone in Havre. It especially affects her profession because they devalue neighborhoods, including where she tries to sell homes.

As of the time of this report, Sunrise officially owns 20 of 80 properties in Hill County for which they have bought the tax liens. The other 60 would belong to Sunrise if the current owner or owners do not pay them the delinquent taxes Sunrise paid to Hill County.

So how did Sunrise come to own so many properties?

Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown said that everyone who owns property must pay property taxes. Hill County property owners get the first notice of due taxes in November. They get a second notice in May of the following year. The property owner can pay the entire tax bill in November, break it up into two payments, or pay it all in May. If the taxes are not paid after the May deadline, they become delinquent and appear in the July Tax Lien Sale. If the owner pays the overdue taxes in June, along with the penalties and the interest, their home will not be in the lien sale.

Tax lien sales are a way for the county to collect taxes from sources who have, for whatever reason, stopped paying. Brown said that if there were no consequences to not paying property taxes, some people would stop paying them. Tax lien sales help local governments collect revenue to keep operating - so firefighters and police can continue to put out fires and arrest criminals and public educators teach children.

Delinquent tax liens are advertised in the local newspaper in July. After that, anyone can pay the overdue taxes and get a lien on the property - the first to pay gets the lien.

Interested parties who don't want to wait until July to see the list of people who are behind on their taxes can pay $30 for a printed copy of the list made available monthly. Brown said Sunrise has bought this list multiple times.

Once someone has bought the lien, the owner has 36 months to pay the taxes back, including the interest accrued. The owner buys the lien back through the county.

This series of articles will focus mainly on the properties that Sunrise owns, properties that were never bought back by the original owners, for whatever reasons.

Several local properties have been owned by Sunrise for years. Any properties that took less than 36 months for Sunrise to own did so because multiple years' worth of back taxes were due by the time the lien was put on the property. One such property is a block of apartments on 5th Avenue. Sunrise has owned them since March 2012.

What makes the 5th Avenue apartments so noticeable, Brekke said, is that the structures are located on a busy street so close to the center of town.

The bottom units are boarded over with plywood, many upper windows are broken out, the exterior stairs are crumbling apart, multiple structure cracks run top to bottom of the 12-unit complex, and an adjacent 6th Street view shows a backyard littered with junk cars, patchy grass and broken windows.

Not all the blight in Havre is caused by Sunrise's properties. Locally owned houses and vacant apartment complexes contribute to the problem as well. But no single local owner owns as many of the delapidated properties as Sunrise..

Blight isn't the only problem Sunrise is contributing to.

Another problem Sunrise's gobbling up of properties is causing is an "an inventory shortage," Cripps said.

Since Sunrise associates refused to talk to Havre Daily News, it is difficult to find answers about their intentions and motivations.

Tomorrow Havre Daily News will look into Havre's housing shortage and talk to people who wanted to buy and resurrect properties like the 5th Avenue apartments but didn't get very far.