Family Landlords Raise the Rent to Force One Sister Out
She frowned, her eyes moving across her computer screen before she looked back up at me.
“The ownership changed recently,” she said. “There was a deed transfer filed last month.”
“My father told me nothing had changed,” I said.
“Let me pull the physical folder from the back,” she said, standing up from her desk. “It will take just a few minutes.”
She disappeared through a heavy gray door, leaving me alone at the counter.
I rolled the silver dial of my watch back and forth, counting the seconds on the wall clock.
The clock ticked slow, the black second hand jumping with a small jerk every minute.
A man at the other end of the counter was arguing about a zoning permit, his voice rising and falling in a steady drone.
When the clerk returned, she was holding a manila folder with a metal clasp.
She opened the folder and turned the first page toward me, her finger pointing to a line of text at the bottom.
“The deed was transferred on the twelfth of last month, miss,” she said.
