Image(s): Left/Toby Newton/Right/Toby Newton’s Mesa, Arizona home(Credit: Toby Newton/Fox News)
Toby Newton bought his four-bedroom Mesa, Arizona home for $475,000 in 2022, planning to spend retirement there with his longtime girlfriend, Sherrie Patten. But after losing his job and being diagnosed with diabetes in 2024, he fell behind on his homeowners association dues, owing just $977, the New York Post reported. When the HOA rejected his repeated payment-plan offers and foreclosed on the home instead, Newton lost the house, which sold at auction for only $8,172. Newton closed on his home in Superstition Springs, a community in East Mesa, in August 2022, intending to retire there. Everything changed in early 2024, when he lost his sales job and was diagnosed with a fast-moving form of diabetes. With household income gone and medical bills mounting, Newton fell roughly a year and a half behind on his HOA’s quarterly assessments of about $170. By the time he tried to catch up, the unpaid dues and interest totalled $977. The home was sold at public auction in November 2025 for just $8,172, far below its $475,000 purchase price. He remains in the house and has filed for an emergency stay, and a GoFundMe campaign set up on his behalf has raised over $15,000 toward its $18,000 goal; Newton says he has no plans to leave.
His longtime girlfriend, Sherrie Patten, who lives with him, was also battling breast cancer at the same time, he told Fox News Digital. Newton told Fox News Digital he wasn’t informed of the auction until two days beforehand, and that he later confronted the HOA board at a meeting to ask why his payment offers were denied, only to be removed by Shaw.
