D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine sues vacant property owner, alleging tax evasion

In July, D.C. Council chair Phil Mendelson (D) explained to The Washington Write-up that the setting up had been taxed as vacant for just six months in the past 13 years and experienced been reclassified by the D.C. Department of Buyer and Regulatory Affairs at least 31 periods in the earlier decade.

People reclassifications, Racine’s go well with alleges, are a outcome of the building’s owners’ “repeated misrepresentations to the District in their constant effort to prevent an elevated tax burden,” relationship as early as 2006, falsely indicating that the making was occupied. For much more than 10 several years, the accommodate reads, the “formerly stately residence has sat conspicuously vacant: boarded up, overgrown, and with masonry degrading, the roof in a condition of perpetual and seen decay.”

The fit identifies George Papageorge as the building’s proprietor he owns the property via the company 10th and C Road Associates. Papageorge has averted spending the vacant residence tax level by continuously listing the building as occupied, the fit states — a violation of the city’s False Statements Act, which was amended by the D.C. Council in 2021 to include tax-related transgressions.

D.C.’s issues with vacant, blighted houses haven’t absent away, inhabitants and officials say

According to D.C. tax information, Papageorge owes additional than $116,000 in taxes on the home. Papageorge could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Last 12 months, The Post claimed that even even though the Office of Customer and Regulatory Affairs experienced flagged nearly 3,000 houses in the town as vacant or blighted, and just a fraction of them had been remaining taxed at the proper price. Racine’s suit notes that quite often these properties draw in nuisance action and can generate harmful ailments for small children.

“Too numerous District people are battling to discover risk-free and very affordable areas to reside, when additional than 3,000 households sit vacant throughout the metropolis,” Racine reported in a assertion, noting the city’s accommodate towards a vacant-home operator was the initial of its type.

Keeping home owners accountable for vacant and blighted qualities in the District has been a cause celebre for Mendelson, the council chair, who is jogging for reelection this year. He claimed in his have statement, “I’m hopeful that this go well with will send out a message that the District is critical about fraud and that these LLCs ought to make an energy to place their houses again into use, instead than carry on to consider to activity the technique.”