Jason Fauntleroy went to a sheriff’s auction in 2021 to do something fairly ordinary: buy a cheap piece of land where he could eventually build a home. He placed a $5,000 bid on what he understood to be a vacant lot in Trenton, Ohio, a small city north of Cincinnati, and won. Then the paperwork arrived, informing him that he was now the owner of an entire street.
As WCPO-TV reported, the parcel Fauntleroy had actually bought was Bloomfield Court, a private road with five occupied houses on it. He didn’t own the houses, just the road that ran past them, which is the kind of sentence that shouldn’t be possible and yet apparently is.
Photo credit: Google Maps
Even the city couldn’t fully explain how it happened. Trenton City Manager Marcos Nichols told the station the road had originally been a private drive created and maintained by a homeowners’ association. Somewhere along the way, that arrangement lapsed, the road ended up in the auction, and Fauntleroy’s bid on a “lot” turned out to be a bid on the whole thoroughfare. Because it was no longer tied to the HOA, the new owner, Fauntleroy, was suddenly on the hook for maintaining it.
What sounds at first like a funny windfall (you own a street!) turned into a genuine headache (you’re responsible for a street). A private road means whoever holds the deed is responsible for its upkeep, and Fauntleroy’s plan to build a house instead became a years-long tangle over what the property was worth and who should ultimately own it.
Photo credit: Google Maps
By 2024, the city had moved to take Bloomfield Court back through eminent domain, the legal process by which a government can acquire private property for public use, provided it pays fair compensation. Trenton’s stated aim is reasonable enough on its face: convert the private road into a public one so the city, rather than a lone individual, carries the maintenance burden for the five families who live on it. The sticking point is the money. Fauntleroy contends the city’s valuation lowballs what he actually owns, and the two sides have been at odds over the amount. WCPO-TV noted the back-and-forth became contentious, with the city citing difficulties on both sides.
Nichols declined to discuss the valuation itself, saying, “I cannot speak to the appraised value.” For his part, Fauntleroy just wants what he considers a fair offer for the road he never meant to buy in the first place.
However it resolves, it remains one of the more unlikely property stories around: a man who set out to spend $5,000 on a place to build a house and instead became, briefly and accidentally, the owner of a road.
