A CHURCH LITERALLY DIVIDED: Mistaken assumptions, bureaucratic screw-ups and language problems have led to the rear half of a Muscatine church being sold for unpaid property taxes.
Tax mistake leads to sale of half a church
By Watchdog.org -- Paul Brennan | Iowa Watchdog——Bio and Archives--July 11, 2014
DES MOINES, Iowa — Pastor Robert Garcia has half a church.
The rear half of Iglesia Emanuel Independiete in Muscatine is now owned by Oak Helm Partners, a real estate investment group from Davenport, and no one is quite sure why they want part of a church.
Garcia isn’t quite sure how he can accommodate his congregation and isn’t entirely sure how all this came to pass.
“No one is aware of any precedent for a matter quite like this,” County Assessor Dale McCrea told Iowa Watchdog.
Suffice to say it took an almost divine bureaucratic thunderbolt to split Iglesia Emanuel Independiete in two. It began with vandalized mailboxes and an unmown lawn.
“The grass hadn’t been recently mowed and we didn’t see any signs of activity at the building, so we sent them a letter inquiring about their status,” McCrea said.
The postal service returned the letter to the assessor marked undeliverable. Garcia had stopped using the church’s street address because he tired of replacing wrecked mailboxes.
McCrea instead turned to the secretary of state’s office, which listed Iglesia Emanuel Independiete as an inactive corporation since 1987. The church has been holding regular services since its founding in 1983.
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