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Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Ind. Law - "Greene County hamlets boast buildings with hundreds of auto sales tenants but few workers"

Laura Lane of the Bloomington Herald Times, a great reporter the rest of the state reads little of, because her paper is behind a fire wall, has an amazing, and long, story today that happily the Indianapolis Star picked up. A few quotes:

Rural Greene County has become a hub for more than 640 individual car sellers from across the nation who have established offices in the long-empty factories. By establishing a storefront office and obtaining the necessary licenses, certificates and insurance, the absentee tenants can legally buy and sell cars at dealer auctions across the state.

State law mandates that these car wholesalers have an actual business office in Indiana. And Chicago-based Dealer Auction Access supplies everything the wholesalers need: help establishing themselves in good standing with the Indiana secretary of state, dealers' insurance, plus a 100-square-foot office complete with walls, a door, a desk and a chair -- required by statute.

The Dealer Auction Access website says it's the largest "host" of wholesale license holders in Indiana. Each of their buildings in Greene County, which rent offices for $300 per month, employs a 9-to-5 secretary who sits at a reception desk answering the phone, allowing access to the offices and forwarding mail to the renters wherever they reside. * * *

Adrian Kiglies is part-owner and vice president of Dealer Auction Access. He knows some people question the legitimacy of his business but says everything is above board. The Indiana secretary of state's office, which has taken over wholesale car dealer oversight from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, agreed: Kiglies' business is legal.

Kiglies said Dealer Auction Access helps people he calls "the little guys" break into the automobile wholesale business and make a living as their own boss. He said the law does not require that the businesspeople who rent offices in his buildings be on site, just that they establish a legitimate Indiana business address. They must buy or sell at least 120 cars a year to keep a wholesale license. * * *

Dealer Auction Access purchased its first Greene County building, the old woolen mill on the west edge of Bloomfield, for $80,000 in January 2009. The offices went quickly; five months later, the company bought two buildings on Vincennes Street in Linton, an abandoned plant and the old Murphy store, each for $85,000.

This year, Dealer Auction Access bought land and two buildings in Jasonville: the former Charles Industries plant, vacant the past decade, for $37,500, and an old extension cord factory on North Meridian Street for $75,000. Construction of 10-by-10-foot offices is under way at what locals call "the cord plant." * * *

But as Kiglies admits, his enterprise does not employ more than a few secretaries and a small work crew that remodels the sites and erects office walls.

In all, Dealer Auction Access has a total of 20 staff, he said.

The state does benefit from his business in a monetary way, Kiglies pointed out. He pays property taxes to the county. Each of his tenants buys licenses and insurance, in addition to the other costs of doing business. And they pay sales tax on vehicle purchases.

And it would seem there is little demand on the county for services -- roads, etc.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 6, 2010 02:13 PM
Posted to Indiana Law