While many advocates’ groups in Detroit, Michigan are currently engaged in trying to keep real estate investors who purchase large volumes of property in tax lien sales out of the city and preferably away from the auctioneer, Wayne County commissioners endorsed a plan yesterday that is a little more investor-friendly than many of the recent proposals. Under the proposed legislation, any individual or company whose property taxes are more than two years behind cannot participate in tax auctions[1]. Bernard Parker, commissioner who proposed the ban, says that he hopes that …

In the Detroit area, a record tax auction in October 2010 sold 4,300 properties and got those properties off the books and helped the city recoup staggering losses causes by the non-payment of property taxes. Sound like a success? Absolutely not, says Maggie DeSantis, president of a local non-profit development corporation. “[We’ve] got to make it so onerous to speculate [in property],” she explains, “and we have to do it now”[1]. DeSantis and others like the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, who believe that “shrinking” the area of Detroit is …

When property owners fail to pay taxes on their real estate, then the city in which the real estate is located has the option of selling off that property tax lien to the highest bidder. Particularly in these difficult economic times, municipal governments are relying heavily on these tax lien auctions to help bolster budgets that are lean and far in the red. However, in Detroit, many communities are saying that the money that comes into the government budget is not worth the blight on the neighborhoods when it comes …

All over the country, homeowners and their municipalities are discovering that they are going to have to find a way to work together on utility bills. In many areas of the country, local governments are reporting that delinquent accounts have tripled as homeowners struggle to make payments or simply inform the country that the bills cannot – and will not – be paid[1]. This creates serious problems for city governments, which are responsible for schooling and public safety, among other things, and often rely on the current year’s tax dollars …

John Rogers, a state representative in Alabama from Birmingham, thinks that the interest rates on Alabama property tax liens are outrageous, and he is making it one of his goals for 2011 to change the process[1]. Currently, Alabama charges a 12 percent interest rate on delinquent property taxes. If the government fails to collect the taxes, then ultimately the liens are sold at auction. During the auction, lien buyers can “overbid” on the liens, paying an excess of what the lien is worth. The new owner of the tax lien …

In Closter, New Jersey, the small town was set to auction off a local mall at a tax lien auction in an effort to “recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes from…owners.” And investors were at the ready, eager to bid on the commercial property. Now, however, the entire process is stalled thanks to a last-minute bankruptcy filing by the property’s owners which effectively prevented the sale from moving forward[1].
In this case, bidders were lucky. The bankruptcy filing happened before the sale rather than immediately after. When the …

What would you feel if one day, you opened your property tax bill and it reflected your $17,000 water bill lien – especially when the said lien is in question and is still being investigated? Perhaps the answer will be close to what Ayanna Yancey-Cato said, “Completely devastated” [1].
Ayanna Yancey-Cato is just one of the many Brockton, Massachusetts residents who were surprised to see their unpaid water bill in their property tax bill. A single mother of three, Yancey-Cato says of the fiasco, “I’m at a loss for words …