Man accused of trying to gain ownership of abandoned homes arrested
SPRINGDALE, Ohio —He’s accused of breaking into abandoned homes, changing the locks and then claiming the houses are his.
A WLWT investigation uncovered a dozen cases linked to the same guy, and Wednesday, Robert Carr was arrested.
Less than a week after WLWT introduced our investigation, both Springdale and Forest Park police have filed criminal charges against Carr for breaking and entering and theft.
“When you abandon something, you forfeit all your rights and title to it, and title is not a piece of paper, title is when you grab it and say ‘Mine,’” Carr said.
The game of finders-keepers could be over for Carr.
He’s now charged with three counts of breaking and entering and three counts of theft involving a few houses, two in Springdale and one in Forest Park.
One of the homes related to his arrest is the one we focused on in our investigation.
A family returned to the house that it was letting go into foreclosure to find locks had been changed, and not by the bank.
In fact, Carr even filed a “quiet title,” claiming the property is now his.
“They would like for this just to be over,” the family’s attorney Alison Warner said.
Warner filed a motion to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim.
“The most disturbing part in this ordeal is this family has had to retain an attorney and had to have someone come in and take care of this, speak with them frequently, file these motions on their behalf to make sure there’s not a default judgment,” Warner said.
While this one family defends itself, our investigation found Carr filed quiet titles on 10 other homes.
“He would have to have some ownership rights to the property in order to have standing with this case,” real estate attorney John Yonas said.
WLWT asked Yonas to take a look at the documents Carr filed in his quiet title action.
“In order for him to basically get squatters rights in Ohio, he would have to follow the adverse possession standard, which is 21 years,” Yonas said.
Those documents would show that for 21 years, he has exclusively and continuously occupied a home.
“I don’t see the guy having any grounds to win,” Yonas said.
And if Carr is hoping for a default judgment where the other party doesn’t fight him, Yonas said he would be shocked if a court would actually go forward with one based on these filings.
WLWT did reach out to Carr’s court-appointed attorney but our call was not returned.
Carr is being held on more than $40,000 bond.
WLWT News 5’s Karin Johnson will have more on this story later today.
As I said, this guy is going to jail for a long time... The only way I know of to acquire a property legally via this sort of thingis via adverse possession which requires someone other than the owner on the title to LIVE IN THE PROPERTY AS THE OWNER OPENLY, paying the taxes and engaging in upkeep for a very very long time, 20 years or more in the states I looked into in, and the true owners doing nothing to remove them or exercise their ownership rights. Then and only then can they file adverse possession motion.
A quiet title doesn’t give anyone any possession, it’s something you do when a title is found not to be clean, it gives anyone with a claim to a title a certain amount of time to come forward and if they don’t the court will declare that any previous claim to the title is now considered null and void, but this process takes time as well, you must file the paperwork, post notices in news papers etc etc etc, and finally gets approved by the court, you can’t just file a piece of paper and claim its yours.
This guy should be facing even more charges than listed.
“When you abandon something, you forfeit all your rights and title to it, and title is not a piece of paper, title is when you grab it and say ‘Mine,’” Carr said.
Thank you for the update ping!