Friday, January 27, 2006

For Sale - Beach Evidence!


Linda L. tipped us off to this weekend pleasure:

Someone from Kingsport, Tennessee, is auctioning off on Ebay a "tri-fold brochure [that] touts the lots available on Santa Rosa Island and the income potential as such."

Better hurry! Bidding ends Sunday at 4:00 PM (central time).

Old timers on the beach may recognize the brochure as the very kind of promotional literature the Santa Rosa Island Authority and Escambia County used to circulate coast-to-coast in the late '50s and '60s. Often, such brochures (and newspaper ads) promised "tax free lots" and made other explicit assurances that if you bought a 99-year lease you'd "never have to pay ad valorem taxes."

The Escambia county commissioners sure knew how to break that promise, didn't they!? (You can get the latest on the pending lawsuits over on the Pensacola Beach Tax Lawsuit web site.)

We can't be sure what this brochure on offer at Ebay actually says, but you can always ask the seller through Ebay's ask-seller-a-question system before bidding. At best, you might be able to use it as evidence in some drawn-out breach-of-contract litigation when and if the tax collector comes calling.

At worst, under the right lighting, the brochure would make a stunning conversation piece on your condo wall -- or in your jail cell when they haul all of us off to debtor's prison.

No comments: