I have documented several times that Lenoir City mayor, Tony Aikens, has filed many quit claims on property that no one believes he got for free. But where's the proof he actually didn't pay money for the property? This story will be the first one where the records show that Aikens paid money for a property, yet the property was registered as a quit claim.
February of 2019, a Lenoir City property owner passed away. It was the task of the executor of the estate to manage the deceased person's affairs. One task was to sell the house and property. The property was adjacent to a local business. In the court filings it was stated that a local business had possibly offered to pay $125,000.00 for the property. However, the property was ultimately sold to Lenoir City mayor, Tony Aikens, for $90,000.00. Court documents question why the property was sold for the lower price without even having been put on the market.
The property was sold/given to Tony Aikens on 10/23/19. I say sold/given to Aikens because, when registered in the deeds office, it was registered as a quit claim, -0- value. This could have been the end of the story and just another one of Aikens many quit claim deeds, but it gets far more interesting.
About six months later, March of 2020, Aikens apparently had a buyer for the property he had been sold/given. The title attorney for the new buyers discovered a problem with the deed. Apparently, the attorney for the estate had made a huge error and it turns out there were three other heirs to the property that would need to sign the quit claim deed. This is when the real trouble started.
At least two of the heirs were mostly unaware of the details of the sale of the property and raised questions about the sale, why it was sold so cheap, why it wasn't put on the market to get the best price, etc. The two heirs hired an attorney to represent them in the matter and chose not to sign the quit claim till they knew more details of the sale of the property.
The attorney for the estate and Tony Aikens tried their best to get the two heirs to sign the quit claim deed, to no avail. Even at one point, Aikens was going to peoples homes, on Good Friday, during the COVID pandemic, trying to get them to sign the quit claim deed. After failing to get the signatures, Aikens sent a text on the same day threatening to sue the two heirs for loss of ($25,000.00) if they didn't sign the deed.
Three days later, Aikens, represented by then City attorney, now city judge, Gregg Harrison, did in fact file a lawsuit against the two heirs with the $25,000.00 threat to force them to sign the deed. Was city attorney Harrison representing Mayor Aikens as the city attorney or was Harrison representing Aikens, his friend, as a private attorney? Who knows. The attorney for the heirs even argued, in court filings, that Aikens couldn't claim he had any loss since his deed, when he got the property, says he paid nothing for the property. The heirs, through their attorney yet refused to sign the deed.
Ultimately, through negotiations, all parties came to agreement, the heirs agreed to sign the deed. On June 17, 2020, the agreed order to settle the matter was entered with the court.
On June 16th, 2020, Aikens sold the property for $159,900.00. Aikens made a cool $69,900.00 in just the few months he had the property, less any improvements he might have made.
All the information above is to get to the final point. court documents state that Aikens paid $90,000.00 for the property but the deed was registered as a quit claim meaning nothing was paid for the property and the property had no value. Both can not be true.
Rest assured, I have all the documents to support the information above. All the documents are public record and available to anyone.
Below are five exerts from the court documents. Some names have been redacted.
