When Michael Durgin got the call on Tuesday morning, he thought it was bad news.

The man on the other end of the line was Christopher Hawkins, a lawyer for the town of Webster. Durgin, a 47-year-old with an admittedly lengthy criminal record, had learned calls from lawyers were rarely positive.

But this one was different.

“We have a $38,000 check if you’re happy with that,” Durgin said Hawkins told him.

Durgin ran out of the bedroom of his Pittsfield RV and screamed.

Hours later, he arrived at Merrimack County courthouse to accept the check, putting to rest a legal dispute that started in March when Durgin discovered the town had sold a house he had inherited without paying him the difference between the sales price and the property taxes he owed.

Durgin took the town to court, claiming that he hadn’t been properly notified when the town took the property for unpaid taxes and later sold it in 2022. At the time, he said he lived just three houses away from Webster’s town hall.

The town initially disagreed with his request, arguing in April that it had done its due diligence in attempting to find him. But on Tuesday, Hawkins said a re-investigation of new information provided by Durgin led Webster to change course.

“We had and still have certain disagreements about certain things with Mr. Durgin,” Hawkins said following a brief court appearance. “But at the end of the day, based on our follow-up investigation, we determined he was entitled to the money and have returned it to him.”

The reversal followed reporting last week by the Concord Monitor about Durgin’s situation that went viral with nearly half a million pageviews online, but Hawkins said the story played no role in the town’s decision.

For Durgin, the payment “couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

On Monday, his girlfriend’s truck broke down, and recently, his computer stopped working.

“We’re off to buy a bigger truck and a stepladder so she can get in it,” said Hawkins, gesturing to his girlfriend, Rhonda Follansbee, who accompanied him to court.

The problems for Durgin started when he inherited the Mount Vernon Terrace three-bedroom home from his aunt some ten years ago.

“I inherited it and immediately went into debt,” Durgin said. He didn’t have the funds to pay off the property taxes.

Durgin eventually moved out and the bills piled up. In New Hampshire, state law allows municipalities to possess and sell properties after an owner fails to settle a debt or arrange a payment plan within three years, a Monitor investigation found. In 2021 Webster took the home and sold it at auction a year later, according to property records.

While Durgin was aware the town had seized the home, he did not know it had been sold until earlier this year.

“I was actually on Zillow looking at apartments when I saw my house,” he said.

The town had received $105,000 for the sale, roughly $41,000 more than Durgin owed after back taxes, interest, and other fees were calculated. By law, Durgin learned, he was owed the difference.

When Durgin asked for the money this year, the town initially balked, pointing to all it had done to attempt to locate him in 2022. In a court filing, Hawkins said town officials had “called many persons named ‘Michael Durgin,’” placed notices in newspapers, and mailed a letter to a Michael Durgin in Dunbarton.

Meanwhile, Durgin had been living just a walk away from Town Hall and his address had been on file with his probation officer and town police, he said.

“Every website pulls up my information,” said Durgin, who felt the town didn’t really want to find him.

The two sides showed up in court in May and Durgin felt it didn’t go well. He expected to endure a lengthy court battle.

And then he got the phone call out of the blue on Tuesday.

Hawkins declined to say what exactly led the town to reverse course. The payment, he said, will likely come from Webster’s unassigned fund balance.

Durgin is just happy to be $38,608.13 richer.

“It’s going to get a new truck, I’m going to get my license back next week, and I’m going to fix my upper set of teeth,” he said. “Other than that, we’re going to try to keep it in the bank for a while.”

 

Previous reporting from Michaela Towfighi was used in this story.