Home Sitting On Conn-NY Line At The Middle Of Bizarre Property Dispute
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (CBSNewYork) -- A woman claims that she lost ownership of half of her house in an interstate property-tax dispute.
On the state line separating the town of New Fairfield, Connecticut from the New York hamlet of Putnam Lake, property tax bills can be complicated.
People who live along the line know they live in two states, but the owner of one house refinanced a few years ago and the bank apparently didn't pay the New York portion of the tax bill. It wasn't a lot, just a couple of hundred dollars a year, but it added up.
The town of Patterson, across the lake, sold their portion of the property in New York and a neighbor bought. The homeowner found herself living in a home that she partially didn't own.
She is annoyed.
"I never heard of anything like this. Nobody has every heard of anything like this. It's just so bizarre, it's so crazy," Rossanne Di Giulio told CBS2's Lou Young.
No one is trying to evict her, and the neighbor who bought the property was unavailable for comment, but apparently wants the yard, not the house.
"As far as I'm concerned I was paying my taxes. The mortgage company was escrowing those funds. Tax deadbeat? Not me, not me," Di Giulio said.
CBS2 has been told that the neighbor bought the property for $275 and has offered to sell it back for $35,000.
Complicating the situation is the fact that the property seems to have three addresses and is very difficult to locate. The tax delinquency notice may have been nailed to a tree somewhere around here. The whole thing is headed to court.
Di Giulio said she sleeps every night in Connecticut, that's where her bedroom is. Her living room and kitchen are in New York.
