Landlord Gary Thomas again has largest back tax bill in Greater Akron

By Realestates News On Oct 1, 2024

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Five years after Ohio’s first coordinated foreclosure against a tax-delinquent landlord, Gary Thomas is still buying, selling and renting homes in Akron – and not paying all his property taxes or maintaining units while evicting tenants.

Summit County Fiscal Officer Kristen Scalise pushed dozens of Thomas’ tax-delinquent properties into sheriff’s sales in 2018 when she took the unprecedented step of labeling the Wadsworth businessman a “slumlord.” At the time, he owed more than $1 million in back taxes – about 10% of all late property taxes in the city of Akron.

With coordination from the Summit County Land Bank, the enforcement action pinched a business model that thrives on not paying taxes, leaving in its wake dozens of vacant lots where rundown homes were bulldozed on taxpayers’ dime.

“It’s not illegal to not pay your taxes,” Thomas told the Beacon Journal five years ago.

Thomas is no longer speaking to the Beacon Journal. But after selling troubled assets to out-of-town investors in deals that keep him on as the local landlord, his business endures.

Local officials tasked with holding him and other problem landlords accountable are learning from the experience as they aim to ramp up enforcement in early 2024.

“As a result of our delinquent landlord initiative, we have gained additional knowledge as to certain business models used to circumvent taxation,” Scalise said.

But the county will need help from lawmakers if it hopes to go after the same landlord, or others like him, and get better results.

Local officials ask Ohio lawmakers for 2 fixes

Gary Thomas and his son Ross control about a third of the rental units the father owned in 2018. There could be dozens more under their management, according to city housing inspectors who chase down open code violations.

Ross Thomas maintains he has no involvement in his father’s dealings even though the men share tax mailing addresses and investors and collect rent at some of the same properties.

The city and county agencies, which maintain separate rental registries, use different codes and track different aspects of property ownership in the rental market, making it difficult for researchers to combine their findings.