To accumulate $200,00 worth of property tax debt would take several years. She would have been notified several times by the town she lives in. For whatever reason she ignored the letters and warnings that were sent to her.
No comment on renting your house from the government?
;-)
Perhaps her husband handled the finances. Maybe she has physical and/or metal disabilities.
I recently took over my elderly parents finances - they were behind on everything. It happens all the time.
But hey there's money to be made. Can't stop progress.
Some places have enormous property taxes and if you don’t pay the penalty can be several times the tax. On a 1.5 million dollar home, it might not have taken long.
You are right there should have been multiple notifications but then again sometimes it just seems to slip between the cracks.
I used to know a lawyer who regularly bought up tax sale property. He didn’t do it on the sly tho. What he would do is buy the owner’s right of redemption from him.
One time he asked the owner if he was willing to sell his right and the guy had no idea his property was being sold for taxes. The guy went down and paid them immediately.
Where I live, the tax collector encourages anyone who falls behind or is in danger of falling behind to contact him and work out the problem. He told me that he would rather work out a payment schedule or some other solution than go through the hassle and paperwork of collection, liens and what not.
Typically at the beginning of year three of delinquent taxes they will send you a registered letter, which includes a payment schedule for the past due amounts plus the current balance due.
Also, the county will reduce the assessment on the property with each delinquency, such that the amount owed (at the end of three consecutive delinquencies) and the assessed value are the same, such that the value of the property when sold will cover the arrears and no amount is due the property registrant.
It is peculiar that they sold the arrears amounts for a few thousand, rather than move to foreclosure. This smells like in inside job from the county clerk’s office and the buyer of the arrearage.
There’s no way that it could be just for a sleazy investor to acquire a million dollar property from buying a $3,000 tax lien.
These liens are a state sanctioned scam.
One should not ignore tax notices, but equity demands that a fairer means of collecting on such debts be devised. For example, if the widow owns the home outright it could be refinanced to pay off the taxes owed. Letting tax lien vultures scarf homes up for pennies on the dollar is legalized theft.