(Update posted Oct. 19, 2013: Kimber has paid back debts and has retained ownership of the house. Details of update at the end of this story.)
The IRS and two mortgage lenders are chasing after a prominent preacher and city fire commissioner, as Sheffield Avenue loses another house to foreclosure.
The Rev. Boise Kimber (pictured) racked up nearly $300,000 in debt on 100 Sheffield Ave. by defaulting on two loans and failing to pay income tax for five years, court records show. The financial woes came to a head on Oct. 26, when a judge ordered the three-story house to be sold through foreclosure.
Enter IRS
The debt includes $40,000 that Kimber owes to the federal government for unpaid income tax. A foreclosure sale is set for Jan. 23 at noon.
Kimber, pastor of the First Calvary Baptist Church, serves on the city fire commission and has long helped Mayor John DeStefano maintain political power in the city’s black community. Click here to read about his history of influence and political connections.
Kimber bought 100 Sheffield with his first wife in 1988. The house, whose white pillars look newly painted, sits near the corner of Starr Street on a quiet residential stretch of the Newhallville neighborhood. Kimber doesn’t live there anymore. Neighbors said the home has been used as lodging for students.
Kimber did not return messages left at his church and with a spokesman for this story.
The slated foreclosure will hit a street in a neighborhood that has already taken a hard blow from a national lending crisis and recession that forced homeowners to give up their houses.
Sheffield Avenue has seen an especially high number of foreclosures in the past three years, said Eva Heintzelman, who runs a foreclosure task force called ROOF. There have been seven completed foreclosures on Sheffield Avenue since the beginning of 2007, Heintzelman said. That’s about 10 percent of the 72 properties on the street.
100 Sheffield’s recent history shows a flurry of transactions. Since he bought it in 1988, Kimber flipped the house back and forth between himself and his church.
Debts mounted in October 2005, when the Internal Revenue Services slapped a lien on the home for Kimber’s unpaid income tax. The IRS placed another lien in May 2006. Together, the liens add up to just over $40,000. The missed taxes cover five tax years ending in 2004.
City Tax Flap
Troubles mounted in 2008, when City Hall noticed that Kimber had been skipping out on paying at least $7,000 in city taxes: Click here for Betsy Yagla’s Advocate story on the topic.
The trouble stemmed from an alleged misuse of a tax exemption. The home was originally granted a tax exemption because it was a “parsonage ancillary to the church,” according to city Tax Assessor Bill O’Brien.
Kimber began enjoying that exemption starting “sometime prior to 1999,” said O’Brien. Kimber first lived in the house with his then-wife, Pecolia Kimber. While the reverend lived there, it qualified as a parish home, justifying the exemption.
However, Kimber moved out sometime around 2005, when he filed for divorce. A 2006 divorce settlement left Pecolia the right to live in the home, and left him the duty of paying taxes there. The reverend kept the property registered as tax-exempt while Pecolia Kimber continued to live there.
City Hall caught wind of the impropriety in 2008. O’Brien said he noticed that the property title at 100 Sheffield had changed.
Kimber transferred the house from the church into his own name on Jan. 17, 2008, according to land records. He didn’t record the sale until one month had passed. He didn’t tell the city that the property was no longer tax-exempt, O’Brien said.
When O’Brien noticed the home had changed hands, he put the property back on the tax rolls. Kimber has since paid all the taxes owed on that home, according to city officials.
Lenders Pile On
After the city tax problem, Kimber faced a greater challenge from two mortgage companies, both of which filed lawsuits this year seeking to seize the home.
The US Bank National Association filed a foreclosure suit on June 19 of this year, pursuing Kimber for defaulting on a mortgage. Kimber took out a $168,000 loan from People’s Choice Home Loan, Inc. on Oct. 13, 2005. The loan was later transferred to US Bank. Kimber failed to keep up with the payments. The debt blew up in part due to a 9.99 percent interest levied on the principal because of missed payments dating back to February.
By Oct. 10, 2009, Kimber owed over $195,000 to US Bank, court records show.
On the heels of the first foreclosure suit came a second one. The Co-For Corporation filed suit on Sept. 30, claiming over $100,000 in debt, too. That company is the secondary mortgage holder on the home. The debt sprung from a $40,000 mortgage taken out 21 years ago. The loan was issued in 1988 to: Kimber and his then-wife Pecolia Kimber, Helen Adams, and Charles and Sarah Brewer.
Since then, all of those parties have had bad luck holding on to their homes.
The Co-For mortgage was issued on May 4, 1988. On May 5, Adams, the Brewers and the Kimbers and the two couples each bought a home. No one appears to have made any payments on the Co-For loan. The parties reworked their agreement in 2005: They agreed to delay payment for a few years, then pay in full in September 2008. However, the loan was never repaid. Two decades after it was issued, the loan has now grown to $103,000, according to Co-For’s suit.
All three homes were hit with foreclosure suits, one of which ended in a foreclosure by sale on 180 Osborne Ave.
The Co-For claim leaves 100 Sheffield straddled with over $300,000 in debt. Kimber’s house is severely “upside-down,” meaning the debt far outweighs the value. A recent appraisal put the value at $155,000, while the debt had grown to twice that figure.
No one answered the door at the home during an afternoon visit last week. The house looked occupied: a Ford Taurus and an old Chevy DeVille sat in the driveway, and a silver car with Virginia plates sat parked out front.
The home would be the third house to fall prey to foreclosure this year, Heinztelman said. ROOF identified Newhallville as one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the mortgage crisis.
(update posted Oct. 19, 2013: City records show that Kimber has retained ownership of the house and rents it out. He reports having paid back his taxes and mortgage and entering into a payment plan with the IRS. He maintains the debt he racked up never exceeded $40,000.)
Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:
• Foreclosure Law Has Her Back
• Who Pays The Pawn Shop?
• Foreclosed House Flipped, Then Burned
• A “Reverse” Foreclosure
• Still No New Family At Kohary House
• Foreclosure Purchase keeps Tomatoes Alive
• Rerun On Atwater Street
• City Left Holding Foreclosed House
• WPCA Fails To Uproot Family
• A New Haven Dream Foreclosed
• This Is The Face Of Deutsche Bank
• Out-of-Town Bankords Respond To Call
• Banks Duck City On Foreclosed Homes
• Rescue Squad Hunts For “Tipping Points”
• John Wins A Loser
• Still A Bargain, Foreclosure Price Zooms
• Flippers Get 2nd Shot At Fixer-Upper
• Suburban Cop Finds A City Steal
• Absentee Banklords Thwart Foreclosure Sales
• City Forecloses On 40 Lots
• Crowd Seeks Cure For “Mortgage Distress”
• Donovan: “Help Is On The Way”
• Judge Forces WPCA To Give Mom A Chance
• WPCA Uproots Tenants, Too
• Home-Rescue Squad Ignores WPCA
• Sewer Agency Unloads House
• Foreclosure Evictions Halted
• Let The Bank Have It, This Time
• Hazel St. Sale Reflects Economic Climate
• Hill Foreclosure Triggers Memories, & Prayers
• Foreclosure Fee-Slashing Judge Leaves Town
• She’ll Be Watching Deutsche Bank
• A Last Pre-Foreclosure Look At A Lifetime Past
• New Yorker Snags Foreclosed-Upon Gem
• Foreclosure Dream Goes Sour
• Judge Slashes Foreclosure Bounty
• Tax Break Saves Woman’s House
• Bank Replaces “Gunshot Alley” Landlord
• Foreclosure Bill OK’d
• Singh Seeks Home For A Song
• Foreclosure’s Neighbor Worries More About Speeding
• Networking Replaces Foreclosure at Christy’s
• Foreclosure Bargain—& Renewal—Jeopardized
• Bank Outbids Akbar; Family May Keep Home
• “So Don’t Worry About Pablo”
• Bankruptcy Postpones Foreclosure
• Next-Door Foreclosures, 53 Years Apart
• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
• Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
• In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
• Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”
To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.
The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.
For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.
Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.
Typical New Haven politics--a tax-scofflaw gets a civilian appointed position by the Mayor--what a joke this city is!
Have some ethical standards for your appointed people Mr. Mayor. This man proves how corrupt your put-in-place system is. He should be removed from any office until his debts are paid in full.