By Kimberly Miller
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Imagine being given the option to buy a house for a buck and receiving thousands of dollars in the process.
That's what happened to Delta Chi fraternity, 1701 E. First St., and Alpha Omicron Pi sorority, 1731 E. Second St., when they discovered in November that they had been overpaying University of Arizona Residence Life on their leases for three years.
Sigma Nu, Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Epsilon were also pleasantly surprised with the news that they too had overpaid their leases and were owed money by Residence Life.
Because of a unique agreement drawn up in 1961 and confusion over the wording of the lease, the Delta Chi, Sigma Nu, Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities and Alpha Omicron Pi sorority had been overpaying rent on their leases for three years.
Because Delta Chi and Alpha Omicron Pi owned the land prior to the housing agreement, they now have the ability to buy their houses for one dollar. The other houses can buy their properties for the value of the land.
David Nix, a university attorney, said the property for the houses was bought with a bond in 1961 under a small group housing agreement. A 40-year lease was drawn up with the stipulation that if the fraternities could pay it off in less than 40 years they would be able to buy the properties outright, for a dollar.
"It's a complicated situation because a special kind of lease was put together for this transaction 34 years ago, and many different administrations have handled it since then," Nix said.
Nix said the money has been accruing for three years because of a problem in bookkeeping.
The UA owed the houses a total of $193,286. It has paid all of the debts except those owed to Delta Chi ($40,473) and Sigma Phi Epsilon, which is in the process of being paid $31,328.
Patrick Alderdice, Delta Chi International Director of Chapter Services, said he first found out about the lease problems when he came to Tucson to handle Delta Chi's loss of UA recognition.
"We were reading the lease, try- mid
ing to figure out where our members were going to live, and we stumbled across this," Alderdice said. "This should have been settled three years ago."
Alderdice said the fraternity 's local housing committee is negotiating with the university for the property's sale.
Delta Chi's lawyer, Bert Parra, said the UA should have made Delta Chi an offer to buy the property three years ago.
"Delta Chi continued to make payments long after they should have," Parra said. "The UA has been receiving these payments for three years and I don't know whose fault it is."
Mark Stanley, from the Accounting and Budget Business department of Residence Life, said confusion was created because the accounting office assumed the lease would be up in the year 2000 and did not realize that it could be paid off early.
"Basically it's very confusing because it has to do with language of a lease written in 1961," Stanley said. "We understood it as a 40-year lease and that was that."
Stanley said most of the money the houses paid that exceeded the stipulated amount has stayed in the houses' accounts. And Dean of Students Melissa Vito said money owed to the UA from other Greek houses could help pay the debt.
"There was some foresight into what was going on and the money was kept in their accounts," Stanley said.