People living in sheds, RVs, a car and a boat on Hilton Head pay thousands to Realtor
A Hilton Head Island real estate agent has been using two lots he owns off Wild Horse Road on the island to house about a dozen people, charging each person hundreds of dollars in rent to live in a car, a boat, RVs, sheds, and two houses shared by several families.
The town’s code enforcement office has found more than 30 violations, issued seven citations related to safety and squalor and suggested tenants find another place to live.
The Realtor, Tad Segars, a partner in Hilton Head Properties, has collected between $12,000 and $15,000 each month in rent from dozens of tenants in recent years. He said people are desperate for a place to live on the island. He said he is helping to ease the affordable housing shortage. He disagrees that the structures are unsafe.
The citations reveal that the tenants living in a boat and a car use a single-stall communal bathroom on Segars’ Reggies Road properties. Most tenants work in the service industry on the island, and at least one child lives with a parent above a garage that has no functioning smoke detectors.
At times over at least the past year, tenants have maintained the illegally connected electric and sewer lines. Those tenants, according to the citations, are not licensed in South Carolina to do carpentry, plumbing or electric work. The overworked sewer system has backed up several times and dumped raw sewage on the property, assistant town manager Josh Gruber said.
Details about the conditions on Reggies Road were revealed after The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette newspapers asked town officials for code enforcement and law enforcement records under the Freedom of Information Act. The records showed a profitable operation of charging owners of RVs and other vehicles to store them on his property, and also charging tenants rent to live in other vehicles.
Some tenants say Segars has been a good landlord. But the people his property attracted — working families on Hilton Head who sought a cheaper place to live — found illicit utility connections, structures without permits, and health hazards. Fearing retribution or deportation, the tenants wouldn’t speak to town officials or reporters about the conditions, according to the citations.
Segars has maintained that he is providing affordable housing, but acknowledges that he didn’t follow building and safety codes, and he didn’t apply for permits for new buildings or for some of the work on his property.
Public records indicate he could be violating at least four state laws. He also appears to have violated the National Association of Realtors’ code of ethics.
But many of the tenants were unaware of Segars’ citations before code enforcement officers knocked on their door last month.
Segars posted some of the RVs on Craigslist to find renters. The units lack legal sewer connections, and some tenants reported paying rent of $650, according to body camera footage from the code enforcement officers. Segars said he has not charged anyone more than $400.
While the conditions violate local, state and federal housing standards, the offenses are not likely to lead to jail time. The seven civil code violations carry fines of about $1,087 each, or 30 days in jail.
Maj. Bob Bromage with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said building code violations are civil, not criminal, offenses.
As a dozen working people scramble to find a new place to live, Segars has profited from years of free labor on his property and tenants in desperate need of housing on Hilton Head Island.
“I have not violated a human right at all,” Segars said. “If anything I’ve given them freedom.”
What is life like at 19 and 23 Reggies Road?
A six-foot fence surrounds the 1.94-acre lot, and few structures are visible from Wild Horse Road. A tree canopy and ever-changing cast of vehicles mask code violations by making it difficult to determine what is on the property at a given time, code enforcement officers said.
Over a dozen abandoned cars litter the lots, and Segars stores RVs and boats while collecting rent from their owners — a practice that requires a business license that Segars does not have.
Amid the parking lot of rusted and un-tagged vehicles, one man lives in a hollowed-out car he owns. He pays Segars $450 per month in rent to stay on the property, according to the citations. Segars says the man pays only $400.
A tarp sits over the back of the car. The man has run electricity to the car to pick up a television signal, according to body camera footage from the code enforcement officers.
Further from the road, another man pays rent to live in a boat he owns that is connected to a trailer, according to Segars and the citations.
The boat is hooked up to a large van, and the tenant uses the single-stall communal bathroom located in the nearby workshop. Segars insists the bathroom was built in the workshop before he bought the property 15 years ago, and likened it to a family sharing a bathroom inside a home.
Two sheds, which Segars calls “tiny homes,” sit toward the back of the second lot. The single-room structures are connected to a sewer line that often backs up. At least two people live in the sheds, the citations say.
Three RVs, at least one of which is owned by a tenant, sit on the property and are rented to people who work on the island. It’s illegal to live in an RV in the town unless it is parked in a campground, according to assistant town manager Gruber.
There are two houses on the property, both of which are home to several working adults.
Segars admitted he did utility work and built structures on the property without permits from the town, which is illegal.
“It’s too painful and too expensive to go through all the hoops,” he told The Island Packet. “I knew I was not following all policies and procedures, (but) people kept saying they needed a place and I said, ‘come here.’”
But the property is not built to sustain so many people.
While Segars has paid for a sewer connection for the two homes on Reggies Road, the RVs and sheds that have connected to it have overwhelmed the system, causing it to back up and create a health hazard, according to Gruber.
Contacted Thursday, media relations director Laura Renwick at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control said DHEC was unaware of the sewer issues on the property. She said the organization’s waste management team will investigate the potential health hazards.
The vehicles and sheds are also siphoning electricity from the homes on the property, according to the citations. Some use a large power cord, while others, like the hallowed out car, use an inverter to get electricity.
State and real estate law violations
Segars has been an active and licensed real estate agent in the state of South Carolina since 1986, according to the state Real Estate Commission. Complaints or board orders are publicly accessible through the commission.
Segars has no board orders or complaints that are listed, although his actions appear to violate at least three parts of the state license law and the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.
- Landlord and Tenant Act SECTION 27-40-440 Renting property that is not in compliance with building codes: Segars has collected rent on property that has un-permited structures, electrical and sewer systems.
- Landlord and Tenant Act SECTION 27-40-910 Retaliatory conduct: According to the town citations, anonymous renters said they did not call attention to the property’s violations because they feared retribution by Segars, including deportation. Referring to a 2018 complaint to the town, the code enforcement officer’s report says “the prior complainant wanted to be anonymous for fear of retribution. The complainant indicated that people feared being deported if they spoke up... She advised she was told to tell people she was just cleaning the RV if she was asked.”
- Real Estate License Law ARTICLE 7 Misconduct: Segars has endangered the interest of the public by managing unsafe structures, according to the citations.
Segars is a member of the national and local association of Realtors, according to Hilton Head Association of Realtors CEO Jean Beck. The association has a confidential complaint and review system for people who believe one of its members has violated the National Realtors Code of Ethics.
While Beck could not say whether Segars has been reviewed by the association for any complaints, his actions appear to violate at least one article of the Realtors’ association code of ethics: Realtors must manage property with “due regard for the rights, safety and health of tenants and others lawfully on the premises.”
In addition, the code of ethics allows Realtors to sell or rent property, but says they “shall reveal their ownership or interest in writing to the purchaser or the purchaser’s representative.”
It’s unclear whether Segars’ firm has a role in the rentals because Segars’ tenants drop off rent checks at the real estate firm where he is a partner on New Orleans Road, according to a videotaped conversation with a tenant during the town’s visit to the site. But Segars says he does not manage the rentals through Hilton Head Properties.
What’s next?
Segars was scheduled to appear in court Jan. 8 for his code citations. He requested a continuance Monday morning and his court date will be rescheduled, according to the town code enforcement office.
His fines can be reduced if he removes all the abandoned vehicles from the lot, evicts all residents and applies for permits for more than a dozen electric, sewer and building projects that were completed outside city code.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREStory tips and records requests
Here’s how we reported this story:
In November 2019, Former Ward 1 Council Member Marc Grant said in a public meeting that a man was living out of a car on Hilton Head Island’s north end. We identified the property in question and the property’s owner. We then filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the town to see if the owner, real estate agent Ted Segars, had received any code violations. We found that he had.
After reviewing dozens of pages of citations, staff narratives, photos and the body camera footage from the town, the newspapers interviewed half a dozen state and local agencies, including the S.C. Realty Commission, DHEC and the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, to fact-check information provided by the tenants at Reggies Road, as well as Tad Segars.
Segars’ court date was postponed due to continuances and the coronavirus pandemic. An Island Packet reporter attended his rescheduled court appearance at the Bluffton Magistrate Court on Dec. 9, 2020.
After Segars’ court date, the newspapers filed a second Freedom of Information Act request with the town for the property’s updated case file. It included body camera footage from two follow-up site visits, and notes about what on the property has been remedied.
This story was originally published January 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
