S.F. Scrambles to Buy Back House for Widow

An elderly widow who lost title to her longtime home because she failed to pay $5,900 in taxes that she was not aware were overdue is in danger of being evicted by the new owners.

Chagrined San Francisco officials, meanwhile, are scrambling to buy back the home of the confused 67-year-old woman, whose name was not revealed because of her age and poor health.

Sheriff’s official Ray Towbis, who earlier ordered the eviction process stopped, called the case “the biggest injustice I’ve ever seen in all my years.”

The new owners, Michael and David Yancey, are trying to get the elderly woman evicted. If they decline the city’s offer for a refund of the $171,000 they spent on the Ingleside District house, the case will wind up in court on Friday.

The Board of Supervisors on Monday voted 9 to 0 to use city money to buy back the house. Mayor Art Agnos, the city attorney and the county treasurer strongly supported the vote.

The new owners could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The situation came to light when sheriff’s deputies were ordered to serve the woman with what they considered a routine tax eviction notice. Instead of an irate tax dodger, however, they found a smiling woman busy cooking oatmeal.

She invited the deputies to breakfast, and they quickly surmised that she was not aware of her situation.

According to the deputies, the woman did not know she owed any taxes, or that her home had been auctioned off to new owners last April for $171,000. The new owners were reportedly sitting across the street in a Porsche, waiting for the eviction to be served.

It was at that point that deputies called Towbis, who then called off the eviction.

“They (the deputies) went out, took one look at the situation and refused to move . . . even though there was a court order to evict the woman,” said Deputy City Atty. Craig McCabe.

Towbis said that later “that afternoon the new owners’ attorney came screaming into my office demanding that the eviction be carried out immediately.”

But Towbis responded that he would refuse to allow the Sheriff’s Department to be made “a party to stealing a 67-year-old woman’s house.”

The San Francisco attorney, Benjamin Kaplan, did not immediately return a telephone call.

McCabe said the woman, who is indigent, had no idea she was behind in her taxes.