Casas En Venta En Des Moines Iowa – Larry Colton and Maria Kendall visit the former home of her mother Natalie Esteban (not pictured) in Marshalltown, Iowa on August 4, 2021. When the name of the home became foreign, all of Natalie’s family photos and memorabilia from her life were revealed. Kicked out of Mexico. Maria Kendall and Larry Colton visited former casa de su madre Natalia Esteban Natalia Esteban (ella no está en la photo) in Marshalltown, Iowa on August 4, 2021. More photos baratijas de Natalia de su vida en Mexico estaba fueron arrojados a la basura.
Lax property laws in the Midwest can affect non-English-speaking homeowners like Natalia Esteban, who immigrated from Mexico more than 20 years ago.
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Maria Kendall took a break from her job as a coffee shop manager in 2020 when she decided to go house hunting on the real estate website Zillow. He was looking for a new home in Marshalltown, a city of about 28,000 between Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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He lived here for more than 20 years and his own children grew up here. Mária was ready for a new home with her boyfriend and the three special needs children she is raising.
He immediately called his sister, Socorro “Coco” Ontiveros in California, who was with their mother, Natalia Esteban. Maria asked in Spanish when their mother decided to sell the house.
Natalia did not decide to sell the house. But it was for sale on the property website.
It appears that someone else has taken control of Natalie’s home through foreign ownership laws in Iowa and throughout the Midwest.
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This is called a silent title action. In most cases, it is used to resolve the question of who owns the property.
People can file title deeds to settle boundary disputes or to decide who owns property after someone dies. But some worry that trouble with the law could lead to abuse by homeowners, especially in communities like Marshalltown where many residents are immigrants or don’t speak English well.
Experts tell Midwest Newsroom that flaws in the writing of Iowa’s quiet title law include vague language that defines how someone can claim to own property. Another is how people are informed—or, as in Natalia’s case, not informed—that there is a dispute over property ownership.
“We would never have known they sold the house,” Maria said, shaking her head. “My mother came back to Iowa that summer and found out she didn’t have a house.”
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Natalia and her husband bought the Marshalltown home in 2001. When the couple divorced, Natalia became the sole owner of the home. In 2018, Natalia moved to California, but returned to her home in Marshalltown every summer.
Maria raised her voice in disbelief as she recounted how someone could sell her mother’s house, which was full of family memorabilia and photos from their life in Mexico, without anyone knowing.
“It was very frustrating,” said Mária. “Like Larry said, it’s scary to think that [my mom] is going to lose the only thing she has left.”
Maria continued, “My mother is retired, but since she has not worked in the United States for a long time, her retirement time is very short. So to lose the one thing that could help him improve his quality of life… It was very devastating for him.
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Iowa’s quiet title law outlines how a person can request a transfer of title to a home, starting with contacting the current owner and posting a public notice if he can’t be found. Natalie Lynner, a law professor at Drake University, says the law could be improved: “I think the problem is more the way it’s published,” she says. “Or better show that they really couldn’t [get] first before we go to some kind of public announcement.”
When someone goes to court to request a change of ownership, they must prove that they have an interest in the property. The problem is that the law does not precisely define what a person’s interests must look like, and real estate professionals worry about the law being misused.
“There seems to be something strange going on,” Drake University law professor Natalie Lynner said of the Marshalltown case.
In October 2020, Catherine Gooding published three public notices in the Marshalltown Times-Republican as required by Iowa’s quiet title law to locate the property owner. Natalia Esteban was out of town at the time of release and doesn’t even speak English.
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Quiet title requires the claimant—the person who claims to have an interest in the subject property—notify the last owner of the home.
However, if the petitioner claims that the last owner cannot be found, his next recourse is to publish a quiet title notice in a newspaper.
A person named Catherine Gooding filed a complaint against Natalie Esteban’s house saying it was abandoned. He said in court documents that the home was abandoned, had a sales tax certificate and has owned the home since 2018. That’s the kind of interest Gooding has shown. (Esteban’s family disputed all of these claims, including that Gooding only applied for a sales tax certificate and was denied. The city had no documented claim to abandonment.)
So, as required by law, he published his notice in the Marshalltown Times-Republican on three separate dates: October 7, 14, and 21, 2020. It is a narrow article that addresses Natalia as “you” in small print, letting her know . . He is named as a defendant in the District Court of Iowa for Marshall County.
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Since Natalia was not in Iowa at the time and did not speak English, she did not know how to attend the hearing. Which means Gooding won the case in default and thus the title to the house.
Lynner thinks the quiet title could be improved to put more of a burden on petitioners to notify property owners.
“But we wouldn’t just be implicitly silent without making it clear that the parties are definitely not going to get it,” says Lynner.
A Midwest Newsroom investigation found that Gooding acquired more than 40 properties in and around Marshalltown, about a third of them through quiet title applications. Many of these properties were acquired after the 2018 tornado and just from August 2020.
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Calls to a number listed for Catherine Gooding were not returned, although a text message was left at the Marshalltown City Hall Midwest Newsroom. Gooding’s attorney said neither he nor Gooding wanted to comment on the report.
And while Gooding is following the proper legal procedures to file a peaceful title claim, city officials worry that Marshalltown’s diverse population could be taken advantage of. Residents vary in language proficiency, education level, and immigration status, and not all read English-language newspapers, let alone the public notice section.
Michelle Spohnheimer, Marshalltown’s director of housing and community development, said she is concerned about the increase in quiet title applications, especially after tornadoes and tornadoes damaged housing in Marshalltown in 2018.
“When you put all of these aspects together, you have a large population that has the potential to be in a situation where they just don’t have what they need to know: ‘Oh, is this something that I can fight or attack?’ for someone to help me in the right way,” he said.
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Spohnheimer said at least three families have recently approached the city with claims similar to Esteban’s. In these cases, it is recommended to hire a private lawyer.
Michelle Spohnheimer, director of housing and community development for Marshalltown, said she has seen more activity on the property after natural hazards like the 2018 tornado and the 2020 derecho. “We’re still dealing with abandoned buildings and dangerous situations and property owners who have no insurance or you’ve left or you’re trying to fix it and you can’t,” he said. “And these things take a long time to recover from illness.
He said he and other housing department officials are trying to make sure the population moving to Marshalltown is educated about homeownership. Spohnheimer said that in addition to making sure homeowners understand their rights, he also consults with the police department and alerts them to signs of suspicious activity, including trespassers.
It’s hard for Iowa to keep track of how many times house titles have been changed using the same method as what happened to Natalia Esteban. According to the Iowa Department of Justice, there is no code in its system that specifically addresses quiet title applications. It can be governed only if the official
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