One problem cities face in Mississippi as they fight blight is absentee landlords, especially those who hide their identities behind shell companies. Tired of such landlords, Jackson is piercing the secrecy veil as it goes after the owners of the infamous Chapel Ridge Apartments in South Jackson.
Jackson Environmental Court Judge Jeff Reynolds ordered the demolition of Chapel Ridge Apartments earlier this month. Judge Reynolds found manager Larry Jackson guilty of four code violations and sentenced him to a year in jail if the complex is not demolished within 120 days.
.The apartments have burn marks on exteriors and are surrounded by trash, debris, and weeds. One building has a burned and collapsed roof with exposed rafters while tries and trash decorate the property. Jackson Municipal Court Judge Kevin Bass declared the property to be a "menace."
Unfortunately, Mississippi's weak corporate disclosure laws allow absentee landlords to hide behind LLC's, thus preventing the public from knowing their identity. The
The city of Jackson sued Chapel Ridge Holdings, LLC, New Chapel Ridge, LLC, Larry Jackson, Andrew Pierce, and several John Does in Hinds County Chancery Court on October 16.
Chapel Ridge Holdings bought the property in 2025 and assumed the loan of the prior owner, Chapel Ridge Apartments, LLC although it was subject to a bank foreclosure.
Jackson accuses Chapel both companies of concealing the identifies of their owners. No officers or directors are listed on the Secretary of State's website. The companies are incorporated in Wyoming. Pierce is a Wyoming attorney who incorporated both companies. The principal place of business is listed at Pierce's address. The complaint claims:
29. Upon information and belief, Defendant Pierce is not actually an officer or director of either limited liability company, even though he is represented as such to the State of Mississippi, but instead he is merely the attorney in Wyoming who incorporated these entities under a business model that pursues corporate business by promising to conceal the identities of officers and directors.
Pierce is quite the privacy advocate:
30. Attorney Andrew Pierce markets his law prncoce as a vehicle for individuals to incorporate entities and shell companies anonymously. Defendant Pierce authored an article, which he promotes on his business website, entided ""Keeping Your Business Afairs Private."" See Exhibit 1, Andrew Pierce Article, available at https://www.thefearlessadvocate.com/article/keeping-business-affair -printe/. ln the article, Defendant Peirce immediately discloses his purpose: ""This article will focus on protecting your identity when conducting business." Said article is intended to ""demonstrate how to structure your companies and finance to be wholly private. Your information won't appear in any public database, nor will it be kept outside of your law firm' and banker's office." Defendant Pierce's article solicits business from individuals with the sales pitch that ""you can shield your identity while conducting business."
The complaint accuses Pierce of shielding the identities of the owners and officers of the two Chapel Ridge companies so they can not be held accountable as they neglect the property and allow it to crumble.
The city asks the Court to declare Chapel Ridge Apartments to be a public nuisance and asked for a TRO and a permanent injunction. The complaint requests the Court order the defendants to secure the property, install fencing, and abate the nuisance. Any insurance proceeds should be spent on repair of the property and nothing else. The plaintiff charges the defendants with unjust enrichment, fraudulent concealment, and civil conspiracy.
The case is not yet assigned to a Chancellor.
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22 comments:
The silence of the "environmental racism" crowd is deafening.
That ?vehicle? In this picture is a fitting addition to this subject.
Damn shame. Chapel Ridge Apartments was a nice complex 20 years ago. People actually had jobs with salaries that lived there. I dated a schoolteacher back then. Oh, the memories...lol.
Someone enlighten me.....So what is the scam here? Insurance? HUD scam? Tax scam ie business loss/disaster?
Sleazy attorney and his sleazy client should stay in Wyoming where so many other Sovereign Citizens hide.
Although out of town landlords can be a problem if it is occupied and not being kept in livable condition; this case and many others the property is vacant. Are the owner not the victim? Their property is being trespassed on, vandalized and burned and instead of prosecuting those crimes we prosecute the owner. Had this property not been destroyed by criminals, it would have been redeveloped.
Piercing the "secrecy veil" is not rocket surgery (except for the CoJ). It's all online.
So what benefit do out of state entities get from owning dilapidated properties in MS? Can they inflate the value and borrow against them? Is it to prop up a portfolio? Some tax benefit?
This push by the city to repair these properties is total folly. Demolition is the only answer.
Please proceed with all due haste!
A lot of solar cancelation scam companies are based in Sheridan, Wyoming. I do solar cases, and I just had to hire a process served in Sheridan. Tons of boiler rooms, it seems.
What else is there to do in Sheridan, Wyoming, other than watch the wheat grow.
The problem is there are too many laws and regulations protecting slum landlords. We have been attempting for 5 years to get a slum landlord to clean up his property.
When "investors" purchase and hold businesses and other 'investments' (like real estate) that aren't profitable or expected to be viable anytime in the foreseeable future, and are mostly just a liability, it sounds like money laundering to me.
You know, like the "winery" that the Ilhan Omar's owned that reportedly never made or sold actual wine.
If you're stealing vast sums from the government (aka taxpayers), or earning vast sums from illegal businesses like drug or human trafficking, you need a way to launder all that cash flow and explain where the cash inflow is "allegedly" coming from. Remember, the feds could never convict the mob of murder; they were convicted of tax evasion. Money always leaves a trail that's very hard to hide.
I've always wondered about the Krystals in Byram. Very few customers, years of vicious reviews, yet somehow it's still in operation. How? Why? Enquiring minds...
why do they put out the fires? same for all blighted properties, why not contain the fire and let it burn. bulldoze it into a pile. bill the llc and then when they don't pay seize it. it is remotely possible that one day that land might have some value.
Why "scam" when you can just own a halfway torn down building and charge people rent to live there? The out of town landlords rake in money in rent, didn't have to pay their water bill for years, and just make profit off the property with low property tax. Do this for multiple years and you are sitting on some cash. They do not care about where the property is located, what is around it, the condition of it, etc. as long as it is bringing in some cash.
There will never be more land created. He who holds land holds something that at some point will increase in value.
Flatten it with unmarked equipment, plant trees, when they ask what happened to their dumpster fire, play dumb like they do.
blackrock
The country club crowd LOVES Wyoming. To the point that know when I hear some of them talk about going to Wyoming it weirds me out. Like their evil HQ is there or something.
It might buff out.
I'd also like to know what the scam is? There must be one since this business model is so prevalent. I have a formerly nice house behind me that got sold into this foggy purgatory, owned by an Atlanta LLC and left to rot. They had one tenant in there for a year, and they were terrible. I have multiple bullets in my roof from their regular shooting off of weapons. They moved out a hurry but left water running so long it started streaming down the driveway, and I called Jackson Water who shut it off. That was almost 2 yrs ago and it's sat vacant since. I've tried unsuccessfully to contact them and offer to buy it as is. A normal owner would want to get it off his hands, so what are they getting out of sitting on it like this?
When your Rental properties in the slums are damaged, the damage is such a great percentage of the value that it could be difficult to justify fixing them up as they are frequently re-damaged while fixing them up. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on here, but it has happened to me personally in the exact city we’re talking about. Losing an $11,000 central air unit on a $40,000 house that you’re gonna buy out-of-pocket and see how you feel.
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