S-O-L-D: Millers buy Lancaster St. property at absolute auction
Published 1:40 pm Thursday, October 25, 2018
POTENTIAL BUYERS and the curious mill around in the front yard at 705 Lancaster Street just prior to the auction of the city owned property last Thursday. The property was formerly owned by Gatewood Cherry.
DANNY IRVIN of The Irvin Group Realtors and Auctioneers reads the terms and conditions of the absolute auction of the 705 Lancaster Street property, which is owned by the City of Stanford.
BIDDING. Jimmy and Mary Lee Miller, left, confer with Dan Barnett of Lincoln Realty during Thursday's auction of the Stanfor City's property at 705 Lancaster Street, commonly referred to as the Cherry property. The Miller had the high bid of $8,500.
WAITING. W.C. Patterson, one of the bidders in the auction, leans on a tree in front of the 705 Lancaster Street property waiting to see who has the last bid.
STANFORD — The condemned house and lot at 705 Lancaster Street is no longer city owned.
Jimmy and Mary Lee Miller, who reside next door to the property, were the winning bidders on the property in last Thursday’s absolute auction. Their bid of $8,500 was the high bid on the day and, with a buyer’s premium of 10%, the sale amounted to $9,350.
The bidding bounced back and forth between the Millers and W.C. Patterson, the neighbor on the other side of the property, before auctioneer Danny Irvin of The Irvin Group gave the final S-O-L-D call to end the auction.
The property, which was formerly owned by Gatewood Cherry, has been a contentious issue for the Stanford City Council since May 22, 2018, when the transfer of the property was filed for a consideration of $20,000.
In the first meeting after receiving the deed, the council asked for interested parties to make an offer on the property.
The council then decided to seek sealed bids on the property. When a $5,000 bid from First Southern Funding, LLC, and an $8,000 bid from Kimberly Deatherage and Chris Patterson were opened in September, the council then decided the bids were unacceptable, with council members Ronnie Deatherage and Naren James saying that the bids were too low.
Deatherage said, “Stanford has $20,000 into the property and we’re maybe only going to get $5,000 for it? I think we ought to get a minimum of $20,000.” He later added, “Did we not, though, when we first started talking about this and putting it on bids, did we not say we had to get a minimum of $10,000, and did we not vote on it?”
James concurred, saying “These bids are both very low from my standpoint. I would be in support of tabling it.”
Mayor Eddie Carter asked if the council wanted to reject the bids and rebid it or reject the bids and sell the property at auction. The motion was then made, seconded and approved to reject the bids and put the property to absolute auction.
The Millers’ purchase of the property comes with a stipulation written into the terms of the sale. As the new owners, the Millers have six months to make the house structurally sound and to code or the property returns to Stanford. They are not required to rehab the house, with demolition also an option.
