Agreed, but he is still liable for the tax lien.
The local government usually has mechanisms to enforce their property taxes by selling a deed to the property to collect taxes.
The tax lien is generally considered the primal lien on real estate.
As the full owner, he simply had a debt to be paid off.
The remaining equity in the house should be his property.
It appears he lost it because the winner of the tax sale, didn’t pay but a fraction of the real estate value. The government probably returned the balance of that sale to the original owner, but the balance wasn’t for the full market value, as the property was sold within months for hundreds of thousands more than the tax sale.
The local courts will likely enforce the sale as publicly valid, in order to remain solvent.
IMHO, his best recourse is a civil suit against the winning bidder for the balance of their sale minus the value of their work to sell the property.
The city, using armed and amrored agents of the government, stole a man’s private property, sold it to another individual or group of individuals, and then left the man homeless over a $134 debt. That is ****ing tyranny staring you right in the face my FRiend.