ATLANTA — An Atlanta church is in danger of being sold on the courthouse steps because of years of unpaid property taxes.
But as a registered nonprofit, Solid Rock Christian Ministries never owed property taxes for decades and the pastor says they were unaware that changed as the tax debt grew.
“We had no clue that we were even getting notifications,” Pastor Jahmaul Williams said.
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“We were never required to pay any taxes from the inception of this ministry from 1978 up until 2017. We had been considered tax-exempt,” he continued.
Williams said the church did not realize that had changed because the new tax bills were being mailed to the home of a deceased former pastor.
“For a number of years, the county had been mailing this tax bill to the previous pastor who had passed away in 1996,” he said.
More than 45 years ago, Pastor Williams’ grandmother donated her house to become the church home on what has become a rapidly gentrifying section of Northwest Atlanta on Huff Road.
Fulton County sold the tax debt to a company named Investa Services, which is now pushing to foreclose next month unless the small congregation pays $67,000 in tax debt, interest, and fees.
“First Tuesday in August. We have been notified that they are going to try to sell our property on the courthouse steps,” Williams said.
State Senator Donzella James has been pushing Fulton County for answers.
“I cannot understand how a church that is active and functioning in the community could be changed from nonprofit to profit,” she told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.
A county official told James they revoked the church’s property tax exemption because of the way its title is recorded. It included a person’s name. It always has. The owner is recorded as “Johnson Carrie Admr Church.”
The church’s first pastor, Carrie Johnson, passed away in 1989.
“It’s a lot of people dropping balls here. And now we need to stop this and give them an opportunity to satisfy, rather than have their property sold on the courthouse steps,” Senator James said.
The church retained a lawyer and has been attempting to fix the title issue.
For decades, it was never a problem with those county property taxes, and the church is still a registered non-profit with both the state and federal governments.
“We should not be taxed. We are a church. We’ve been known to be a ministry,” Williams said.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to both the Fulton County Tax Assessor’s office and Investa Services looking for comment.
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Neither has responded.
By Georgia law, third-party lien holders are required to notify you within 60 days of assuming your debt.
They can charge you a one-time 10% penalty and 1% per month interest.
They must wait 12 months before foreclosure.
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