IN-DEPTH COVERAGE
Journal-News reporter Amanda Seitz interviewed experts and officials to bring you this story about a potential lawsuit that could set precedent for squatters and people who try to steal homes in Ohio.
A Cincinnati man has been entering the homes of strangers in southwest Ohio and then claiming them as his own.
Robert Carr, 49, is currently staying in the Hamilton County Justice Center, where he’s being held on a $55,000 bond and facing six felony charges for breaking into three Hamilton County homes. But, over at least the past two months, Carr has been trying to take up residence in various homes throughout Butler and Hamilton counties.
Carr has filed civil complaints against at least a dozen homeowners in those counties, claiming that he is now the owner of the properties because the real homeowners, he says, abandoned their real estate. Many of the homes are in foreclosure and one of the homes, in the city of Hamilton, is currently owned by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
One of the houses that Carr entered — and then filed a claim of ownership for — is occupied by a Springdale family that happened to be out of town and caring for a sick relative when Carr allegedly broke into the home and tried to take it over.
When the family, who is asking not to be named in this case, returned back to their home, they found Carr, who had changed the locks and emptied the house. He presented the family with paperwork, which he said proved he was the home’s new owner.
That family had only been gone for a matter of days when Carr decided to move in, said Alison Warner, a Cincinnati attorney who is representing the family in their fight against Carr’s ownership claims. Her clients had been planning to move out of the home and were facing a possible foreclosure, but they had only temporarily left their residence, according to Warner.
“This was a break-in,” Warner said. “Carr was showing that he had filed this claim, purporting that to be a document stating that he had claim to the home and trying to pass it off as a declaration from the court.”
Now, Carr is facing felony charges of theft and breaking and entering into three homes, including the Springdale one. Carr will be in Hamilton County Court Monday. His public defender could not be reached for comment. Another woman, Bethany Firth, 25, of Cincinnati has also been charged with felony breaking and entering in connection to Carr’s case. She is in the Hamilton County Justice Center on a $5,000 bond.
Carr was also indicted on felony charges of theft and breaking and entering earlier this year and is scheduled to appear in court for those alleged crimes in March, according to court records.
‘I don’t like what I’m seeing’
Warren said if her client’s motion for dismissal of Carr’s claims works, she hopes other alleged victims won’t have to face Carr in court to battle him for their properties.
“If the other complaints are identical, those, too, should be dismissed,” Warner said. “The fact that the family I’m representing is taking the steps to defend themselves in court will bring some awareness to these other cases.”
Carr, through a series of claims he’s filed in Butler and Hamilton counties, said he’s entitled to the property because the original owners have abandoned their home and that “results in a transfer of of the ownership interest in, and the title and possession to, ” him, according to court documents obtained by the Journal-News.
That claim likely won’t stand up in a courtroom, said Paul Weinstock, a professor at The Ohio State University who teaches real estate law. Weinstock pointed out that in homes where an unpaid mortgage is involved, lenders would have right to any abandoned property, not Carr.
“Anybody can file a suit about anything,” Weinstock said of Carr’s claims. He added that there are certain laws that allow people to take ownership of personal property, if it’s abandoned or left at the curb for garbage pick-up, for example. “There’s a big difference between personal property and real property; this has never applied to land.”
Weinstock said that for a squatter to gain rights to a property, they have to occupy an abandoned piece of land for at least 21 years.
In Carr’s court claims, he tries to use a loophole called a “quiet title” to take property that isn’t his. Butler County Recorder Danny Crank said that quiet titles are typically used to determine ownership when more than one person is listed on a deed.
“He has no interest in the property,” Crank said of Carr’s quiet title filings against two homes in Butler County. “You can’t go in and say, ‘I’m taking over this property.’”
Just last month, Carr filed two complaints demanding ownership to a Fairfield home at 2412 Resor Road and another home at 918 Park Avenue in Hamilton. In his claims, he admitted to entering both homes.
Carr is not facing any criminal charges related to these complaints.
Neighbors living near the Fairfield home say they have just recently witnessed what they call suspicious behavior with several individuals coming in and out of the home, which has been vacant for a number of years.
The Hamilton home, which Carr asserts is owned by David Lewis in court documents, has been owned by HUD since October. The Fairfield home is in foreclosure, awaiting sale at a Butler County Sheriff’s Auction and decorated with tattered stickers notifying passersby that the property has been vacant since 2011.
Ike Akroush, who lives on Resor Road, said the home’s listed owners were a couple who was facing foreclosure and, as a result, moved out several years ago. Akroush has grown suspicious over the past two weeks because he has seen a few people walking in and out of the house that appear to be living there. A car with current license plates, one of a few that have pulled up to the home in the last few days, sat in the driveway Tuesday. Akroush, who has lived in the home for 30 years, said he never saw a for rent or for sale sign posted in the yard.
“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” Akroush said.
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