The Memphis House-Slipping Scheme: Are We Letting Our Elders Get Robbed?

Written By JR Robinson

So, We Need to Talk About This.

Okay, I’m going to be honest with you guys. When I started JustMy, the goal was always to highlight the good, right? To build community, to get businesses growing, to make connections. But part of building a real community is looking at the hard stuff. The stuff that hurts.

And this story? It hurts.

This is our very first Community Spotlights feature. Think of it like a local, hard-hitting 60 Minutes report, but with heart. I sat down with a family that is going through an absolute nightmare, and I brought in some people who are fighting back. We are talking about Ms. Marva Williams, the widow of Rudy Williams—the former Mayor of Beale Street, a veteran. We are talking about a woman who should be celebrated in our city, not put out on the curb.

But that’s exactly what happened.

So, I want you to grab a coffee, sit down, and really read this. Because if this is happening to Ms. Marva, it could happen to your mom, your grandmother, or your neighbor. And we need to figure out how to stop it.

The Day the "Vultures" Came

So, imagine getting a phone call on a Tuesday. It’s about your mom. And the person on the other end says, "Hey, there are people here, and they are taking things out of the house."

That is the call Meghan, Ms. Marva’s daughter, got.

I asked Meghan to walk me through it because I wanted to understand the emotion of that moment. She gets to the house—her childhood home, or the property her mom owns—and it’s chaos.

Meghan: "Yes. I got out of the car. I saw what was going on... She had a crew of people. I knew there was nothing that I could do... As we're waiting for the TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] to come back, they were taking things out of the house. Only this time they took most of the house, most of the items out of the house and put them on the street. You could literally hear glass breaking..."

Glass breaking. Just think about that for a second.

This wasn't a calm, legal proceeding where a Sheriff knocks on the door and explains things. This felt like a raid. And here is the kicker—the people moving the furniture? They weren't the Sheriff.

So, in Tennessee, the law is pretty clear. The Sheriff or a Constable handles evictions. But according to Meghan and the activists we spoke to, these were private process servers acting like they had the authority of the law.

Meghan told me, "She did not serve a process. She did not hand any paperwork over to my mother to say, this is what's happening... So my mother was also denied due process that day."

I mean, how does that happen? How do random people show up, act like the police, and just start tossing a senior citizen's life onto the sidewalk?

The "House Slipping" Game

Okay, so to really understand this, I had to bring in Mr. LaTroy Williams. Now, if you know Memphis, you might know LaTroy. He’s been fighting tax sales and advocating for homeowners for like, 40 years. He calls it as he sees it.

And he calls this "House Slipping."

It’s a term you need to know. Basically, it’s a system that seems designed—intentionally—to strip wealth from our black elders.

Here is how LaTroy breaks it down. And I’m going to try to simplify this because it is technically complex, but the impact is simple: It’s theft.

So, the Republican Party passed a law back in 2016. LaTroy argues this law weaponized the tax sale process. When a house goes up for a tax sale, investors—or "house flippers"—bid on it. But they don't just bid what is owed. They allegedly "bid up" the price on paper.

LaTroy Williams: "If you bid on it and the trustee sell it to you for $10,000, but you and a partner... bid up to $200,000. So you bid it up for $200,000 so that John Doe can come up with $200,000... That person got to go and find a million dollars and put up."

So, let me explain what he means here. To redeem your home, or to fight this in court, you are often required to post a bond or pay the amount the investor "bid." If an investor artificially inflates that bid—saying they paid $200k when they really only paid the county $10k—they create a financial wall so high that no pensioner in Memphis can climb it.

They lock the door, throw away the key, and say, "Pay us half a million dollars if you want to argue."

It’s genius, in a really sick, twisted way.

The Missing Money Mystery

But here is where it gets even crazier. According to LaTroy, Ms. Marva shouldn't have owed a dime.

LaTroy Williams: "By the law of the state of Tennessee, Ms. Marva doesn't suppose to pay taxes... Her husband, Rudy Williams, who is the former mayor of Beale Street, he had died, and he was a veteran."

He’s talking about Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 67-5-702. It provides tax relief for disabled veterans and their surviving spouses. Plus, the property was reportedly a non-profit organization—the Rudy Williams Scholarship and Museum.

So, if she is exempt, why was her house sold?

LaTroy alleges it’s a shell game. He says payments made by Ms. Marva were misallocated. They took money meant for her home and applied it to vacant lots she owned—lots that had tiny tax bills. By shifting the money around, the system creates a "debt" on the valuable house where there wasn't one before.

LaTroy Williams: "They're taking, put a lot of it on 1257. And that's vacant land... The taxes on it is only about $200 a year. But there's $800, $900 that she's paying and sticking it [there]."

It’s like me paying my mortgage, but the bank taking that cash and putting it on my credit card bill instead, and then foreclosing on my house because they say I didn't pay the mortgage. It makes no sense, right? Unless the goal is to take the house.

The 90-Day Loophole

And then there is the speed of it. Usually, you have time to fix tax issues. Like, years. But LaTroy points out a loophole for "abandoned" properties that allows for a 90-day sale window.

He claims they falsified the records to make it look like Ms. Marva had been delinquent for eight years just to trigger this fast track.

LaTroy Williams: "She got to be behind eight years... She wasn't behind in no years. But they overdid it. They said she was... falsify some paperwork said Miss Marva was behind eight years."

They put her in the fast lane to eviction before she even knew the car was moving.

The Eviction Angels

So, while all of this is happening—the glass breaking, the furniture moving—two young ladies, Lanell and Marinda Williams, happened to be there. They are sisters, and they started recording.

They weren't trying to be famous. They were trying to stay safe.

Lanell Williams, PhD: "I wasn't trying to document the case actually... I was simply recording because I didn't feel safe... I decided to record this because I wanted people on my own personal TikTok to at least know that this was happening. In the case that something actually happened to me and my sister..."

Think about that. They felt so threatened by these private movers that they had to go live on social media just in case they disappeared or got hurt.

They call themselves the Eviction Angels now. And what they saw was disturbing. They saw police officers standing by. Not helping Ms. Marva. Not stopping the private movers who—remember—don't have the legal authority to evict. But standing there, protecting the process servers.

Marinda Williams: "The police act like he's the only guy outside... The person thinking said, well, they done bought my house. And they've taken advantage of people."

It’s intimidation. When a cop stands next to the guy kicking you out, you assume the guy kicking you out is right. You assume you lost.

Am I The Bad Guy?

So, in the interview, I had to ask a question. And honestly, I wanted to know the answer for myself, too. Because we are all about business here, right? We want to make money.

I asked them: "If I see a property for $5,000, and I’ve got $5,000... that feels like a good business move here. So my question becomes, who are the people that are allowing that sale to ever happen?"

Like, if I buy the house, am I the villain? Or am I just a smart investor?

Lanell, who is a biophysicist (so, super smart), gave me an answer that really stopped me in my tracks.

Lanell Williams, PhD: "That's true, but I do want to clarify that they are bad guys because when they found out the truth they didn't turn around. Because the thing is, if you bought $5,000 property and someone said, they're evicting this person illegally... then you then move forward and say, forget that, I still want my house, then you are the bad guy."

That hit me. It’s about consciousness. It’s about knowing that your "good deal" is actually someone else’s stolen legacy.

The Allegations

Now, LaTroy didn't hold back on names. And again, this is his view, but he has been in the trenches for decades. He points the finger right at the top. He mentioned the Shelby County Trustee’s office. He mentioned attorneys working both sides of the deal.

He called it "mafia-style stuff."

LaTroy Williams: "Regina Newman, I call her a crook... All you have is bribery, schemes... They know what's going on and they let these things happen... They just let them go on and nobody do anything about it."

He’s saying that the people elected to protect the records—the people we pay to manage the taxes—are the ones opening the back door for these investors.

Why Aren't We Hearing About This?

So, why isn't this on the 6 o'clock news every night? Why isn't this on the front page?

According to LaTroy, the local media is "yellow journalism." They don't want to touch it. It’s too complex. It involves powerful people. It’s messy.

LaTroy Williams: "The media won't cover things like taxes on homes because they don't know... And the media, this is not a media in Memphis... Not a media company in Memphis... has an interest in other than cutting down the people that can't help."

That’s why we are doing this story. Because JustMy isn't about protecting the status quo. We are about the community. And if the community is hurting, we have to talk about it.

What Do We Do Now?

This isn't just a sad story about one lady. This is a system.

Meghan said it best at the end of our talk:

Meghan: "Our elders who are homeowners, need protecting. There needs to be infrastructures and programs in place so that elders can keep their homes... Don't just steal or use corruption or mismanage documents against our elders."

We need to wake up. We need to look at who we are electing. We need to ask questions when we see our neighbors getting put out. We need to support people like the Eviction Angels who are documenting this stuff when no one else will.

And honestly? We need to be better neighbors.

This is Ms. Marva today. Tomorrow, it could be your auntie.

So, I want to know—what are we going to do about it?