Posted on 04/01/2014 5:49:30 PM PDT by kiryandil
An elderly widow who had fallen behind in her property taxes discovered she longer owned her home after trying to sell it to pay off her debt.
Unbeknown to Hertha Handler, ownership of her $1.2 million Oyster Bay Cove home in Long Island has been transferred to an investor who bought two of the liens against the property.
The 73-year-old widow had lived in the property for more than 40 years but after her husband died several years ago, she slipped behind on taxes and had an outstanding debt of $200,000.
Multiple liens had been made against the property, where Mrs Handler had raised her two sons, but she had no idea ownership had been transferred to investor Albert Kalimian.
By buying just two of the liens from Oyster Bay Cove village for about $3,000 each, Mr Kalimian was able to take possession of the property.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
That’s how it works. They sell the property to satisfy the liens. She gets the rest.
I’m assuming she just ignored the property taxes even though she was aware of them. It happens quite a lot. When old people don’t want to do something, they sometimes claim “confusion”. My wife works for a CPA. They get “confused” about paying taxes but become experts on avoiding them.
My mother was a devout liberal Democrat and she hated paying taxes but she sure wanted everyone else to pay them.
It’s amazing that ANYONE would defend renting their real property from the government.
wiki
Property taxes in the United States originated during colonial times.[60] By 1796, state and local governments in fourteen of the fifteen states taxed land, but only four taxed inventory (stock in trade). Delaware did not tax property, but rather the income from it. In some states, “all property, with a few exceptions, was taxed; in others, specific objects were named. Land was taxed in one state according to quantity, in another according to quality, and in a third not at all. Responsibility for the assessment and collection of taxes in some cases attached to the state itself; in others, to the counties or townships.” Vermont and North Carolina taxed land based on quantity, while New York and Rhode Island taxed land based on value. Connecticut taxed land based on type of use. Procedures varied widely.[61]
During the period from 1796 until the Civil War, a unifying principle developed: “the taxation of all property, movable and immovable, visible and invisible, or real and personal, as we say in America, at one uniform rate.”[62] During this period, property taxes came to be assessed based on value. This was introduced as a requirement in many state constitutions.
After the Civil War, intangible property, including corporate stock, took on far greater importance. Taxing jurisdictions found it difficult to find and tax this sort of property. This trend led to the introduction of alternatives to the property tax (such as income and sales taxes) at the state level.[16] Property taxes remained a major source of government revenue below the state level.
Hard times during the Great Depression led to high delinquency rates and reduced property tax revenues.[63] Also during the 1900s, many jurisdictions began exempting certain property from taxes. Many jurisdictions exempted homes of war veterans. After World War II, some states replaced exemptions with “circuit breaker” provisions limiting increases in value for residences.
Various economic factors have led to taxpayer initiatives in various states to limit property tax. California Proposition 13 (1978) amended the California Constitution to limit aggregate property taxes to 1% of the “full cash value of such property.” It also limited the increase in assessed value of real property to an inflation factor that was limited to 2% per year.
It's well past time to tax the income from property, not the property itself.
Once a year here in Georgia.
Read post #24, by FReeper Ouderkirk:
New York must be really weird to reducer assessments to match a lien.
Sounds like theft to me.
If she doesn't own the house, why does she owe taxes? Shouldn't it be the owner?
Yep. Here in the Midwest, that’s a $70 - $90K house. With a large lot maybe 100 - 120K.
Obama and the Democrats war on the elderly, poor, infirm, and working class conservatives (and some less than 1%er Democrats).
Look where the property taxes are the highest and you’ll find that in almost every case, the city/county and even state is run by Demonrats.
For those of us on a limited income, it is getting increasingly hard to pay the tax bills. Now I have to use Social Security to cover basic needs, and our country, wasted $200,000 of our money and $800,000 of the US taxpayers’ money for a $1.1 MILLION DOLLAR bus stop hut (heated sidewalks) that doesn’t work (the roof is so high and tilted backwards that snow and rail get in. (ARLINGTON COUNTRY, VA - run by geniuses and voted in by illegals, rich Democrats, and plain old fools).
There should be an age bar on property taxes or at least a percentage limit bases on the owner(s) income minus medical expenses.
That’s the decent thing to do, so you know the Democrats won’t do it. Decency is not in their program of “wealth redistibution”.
north, to Alaska, going north, the rush is on!
If governments were limited ,then the taxes would not need be at such a crushing level.
Here, it might be 200k if it was in a desirable neighborhood and thoroughly updated. Half that or less if not a good neighborhood and neglected. That one looks a little tired to me. Not necessarily neglected but a little too original in ways that are not desirable.
No more so than if you didn’t make your car payments and they repoed the car. When the house was bought, they committed to paying the property taxes.
Oregon has a business personal property tax on equipment and tools, but excludes inventory. They basically tax you from the ground to the roof and everything in between unless it has a price tag on it.
“For those of us on a limited income, it is getting increasingly hard to pay the tax bills.”
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Stop whining,sell the house, and downsize. I did it and just about everyone I know did it.
Sure I miss my home,but that’s life.
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I'm getting ready for living in the National Forest Campgroundz...
She’s 70 something and didn’t know that she owed property taxes every year? whatever
I have one of the smallest houses on the street, along with a disabled wife who cannot get Social Security or Disability, and I’m rated as Disabled though I work 30 hours a week (No more money for my job position).
My wife cannot climb steps so we have to live in what we’ve got unless you want to donate some money to help us.
No place to downsize too. Damn it idiot. I worked my whole life for a place to live, despite a heart attack and cardiac arrest, and I’m still working at 69 plus doing volunteer research for Vietnam veterans ( I was there as a journalist) and some friends.
There are always a couple of Aholes here at FR. Don’t get a life, get a heart.
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