Reported by Liku Zelleke
Lisa Hardy’s Indianapolis home has everything it takes to make a house look like a home. There are wind chimes on her front porch, she has a vegetable garden in the back and there are children running about. The only thing missing in this homely picture is a title or deed that shows it all belongs to her.
And yet, Hardy and her three children have been living in the three-bedroom house for the past eight years and she is yet to pay a single month’s rent (two of her kids have since moved out). The house, apparently, belongs to no one and no one has come forward to claim it: no individual, no bank and not even the government seem to care, because no property tax has been paid for all the duration of her occupation of the house.
When the housing crisis hit the country, Indianapolis found itself neck-deep in houses that had been abandoned by their owners and they just couldn’t handle the influx. Hardy’s was one such house and the city didn’t get around to selling it at a tax sale.
So, she took it upon herself to care for the property that sits on 1,490 square feet as if it were her own. She maintained the garden, paid the utility bills, installed a security system and never took her home for granted.
“I thanked God every single day. There’s not one day I haven’t thanked the good Lord for the opportunity to live here without rent,” she said.
Hardy came to live in the house while working as a leasing agent for Showhomes Property Management in 2005. The business owned the house and allowed her to live in it for as long as she worked for them.
In 2006, she was laid off and a couple of months later the business went under as the housing market fully collapsed. The owner, Robert Penn, faced federal charges and ended up in jail for seven years. This left no one to take over the ownership of the property.
Hardy has now finally come forward with her story because she recently found out that the house had finally been sold at the city’s surplus in July and is now hoping that the new owner will fix it up and rent it out to her.
