Posted on 09/07/2013 11:27:30 PM PDT by RC one
On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb.
Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.
All because he didn’t pay a $134 property tax bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“... you know the county got more than $134 from the sale. So what happens to the rest of the money? Free profits for the government from stealing the property of the citizenry.”
Spirited: It was Solzhenitsyn who saw America’s fall into the legalism (political correctness)used to seize this elderly vets house. Legalism is pragmatic (whatever works), hypocritical, and morally relative, or the feelings-based moralism of the powerful.
The hypocrisy of this act is seen by the fact that had this vet been a member of one of our politically-favored groups a blind eye would have been turned to his property taxes. And if by chance his house was seized the “offenders” would be forced to publically confess his sin and doubtless be forced to resign as well.
Another is always hypocritical
Almost happened to my best friend’s father’s property in Montgomery County, MD [Mo Co] just outside DC.
Mo Co allows owners to pay property tax in full or on a 50/50 plan [half in June, half in December].
Anyway, my friend’s father died in a traffic accident and he was on the 50/50 plan - nobody knew about it. So, the second installment was not paid at the end of the year.
Fortunately, Mo Co requires tax lien purchasers to send certified mail notifying of the transfer and to give 90 days to pay the delinquent tax plus 25% penalty. This is before any other action to be taken.
This was done, the tax and penalty were then paid promptly - no problem.
But, this thing in DC is RIDICULOUS ...
It smells of kickbacks IMO. There are government employees getting paid under the table for facilitating this activity.
That accelerated quickly.
Rules vary but in general, unpaid tax liens are sold to investors on a silent auction basis and if the same investor pays the tax lien on the same property two years in a row, the investor is allowed to foreclose.
Sure, the story is sad, but it could have so easily been avoided. How many demands for payment did he ignore?
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At least 2 years worth .. that’s the shortest period in the US , many states are as long as 5-7 years ... also he ignored the legal notice and being served by the sheriff about the foreclosure being scheduled .. at that time he could have paid the $134 plus interest (usually 12-18% a year) and been OK,, if he was notified with 30 days he could have paid the bill by holding a garage sale, or simply writing a check when his SS check came in.
If you read the article, I think you will agree, this business in DC is unscrupulous at best and criminal at worst. a house being sold by the government to a lien company for $287 to pay the tax bill and then being sold by the lien company for $129,000 2 months later. There’s criminal activity occurring there.
He lost his property because he didn’t pay $134 dollars.
The guy must be a mental midget.
No bank in the country would fail to loan him $134 dollars on his property. Something here is not right.
Is this guy really that stupid or did we miss a great part of the story.
Go back and read the article...the man is elderly and has dementia problems associated with his age.
“private property” is an illusion, just like “free speech”.
The government would love to seize your property, but can’t just yet. So they let you use the property, pay taxes and other bills and have financial responsibility for it. They confiscate a portion of it each year through the “property tax”.
That criminal and unscrupulous activity plays a significant role in Democratic strongholds is a given. From what I know about tax auctions in other states, I'm not sure how these tax companies manage to bloat the DC property owner's bill with additional fees?
As I previously wrote about in other states, if a property owner for whatever reason fails to pay a $145 dollar property tax bill, the bill is typically put up for auction and investors bid on who will pay the bill and charge the least interest. If the second year the property owner fails to pay the property tax bill, has not paid the investor for the previous year's bill and the same investor purchases the tax lien the second year in a row, that investor is entitled to foreclose on the property.
Sometimes the properties are little more than crack houses and vacant landlocked wetlands. Occasionally, decent properties come available.
What a shame.
In Detroit, ~50% of the homeowners just ignore their property tax bills altogether. Ignore it three years in a row, and they’re supposed to take your house. But they don’t.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130221/METRO01/302210375
Government: “That’s a real nice house you got there, fella. It’d be a shame if something....happened to it. We wouldn’t want that would we?
Now, you pay us a little protection “fee” and we’ll make sure that house stays safe and sound...”
Government is the biggest mob organization there is.
If it was a private debt to me I would consider taking the same action. Why should the government be more lenient than what a bank or a private lender would be?
Nothing to see in this story other than the debt needs to be truly past due and the home owner had to have known about it prior to foreclosure. Thirty days past due obviously doesn’t cut it.
This will not happen in our family. We visit with, communicate with, take care of, check in on, each other. And that’s all I’m saying.
If you must pay protection money not to have your home or property taken by the government then you really don’t own it.
In some place your personal property is taxed as well as your real estate.
In effect you must pay the king to be allowed to keep what you “purchased” with the little money he allowed to to keep after taking half your earnings to spend on wars,lazy supporters of the king,and even a little bit on needful projects like roads and a defensive military.
King=government.
Remember for many years and still way too prevalent is the legal doctrine that “the king can do no wrong”,hence government and its lackeys arerarely prosecuted for actions that would ensure your incarceration if not execution.
And the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion was simply proof of the truth in the 1960s rock song about revolution :”new boss,same as the old boss...”
I read that in Washington,D.C. one cannot legally install a really strong door that would impair the ability of the police to break in.
Freedom ?? Sure the freedom to watch asinine entertainmentis still available but just about everything else is severely restricted.
It is not freedom nor in compliance with the Bill of Rights that you must get government permission and pay a fee in order to protect yourself with arms,nor do the same for “free” speech in a public square.
So you are opposed to property taxes - what do you suggest be used instead? Texas is biased toward property taxes and away from income taxes. That seems to work well for us.
This man was old, battling dementia and obviously without a strong support system which happens all the time when people outlive their families. He was a tired old sheep that the wolves found away from the flock and he was devoured but what’s even more disturbing is that he’s not the only one getting effed. This is happening by the thousands in DC.
“Government is the biggest mob organization there is.” I have always felt that way. What are taxes? a peace of your action. What happens when you don’t cut the boss in on your action? You get hurt. I don’t put anything past them anymore.
In a truly free society you would actually own your home and then be free to contract,or not, for fire protection,security services,electricity,natural gas,telephone(communication) water, and waste disposal services, of your choice from the marketplace.You would pay no school fees(taxes) unless sending someone to a school of your choice. You would pay no tax to support libraries,museums,art exhibits,and the like, but would be free to patronize such businesses and associations.The utility provider would never think of adding a fee to your bill in order to provide free utilty for someone else.
Charity would be your personal decision and a function of churches and private societies.
Another ridiculous situation is the “homeowner” being forced to pay for sidewalk repair yet have no control over that portion of his “property”.If the sidewalk is public thoroughfare like the street then it should be funded as such.
As for health or nuisance issues,your neighbors would be free to file civil lawsuits for damages should your property be a refuge and source of vermin or unhealthy waste.And they would run the risk of losing unlike today’s government enforcers who are arrogant lackeys.
What happened,and is still happening, in the U.S. is that time after time , a vocal minority convinced those in authority to steal everyone’s money to pay for some special desire of that vocal minority .They always claim the public as a whole will gain some nebulous benfit.They almost always lie.
Many rural and semi-rural people have been forced to incur huge debts by forced abandonments of working septic systems in favor of hookup to the municipal sewerage system(the same systems that often have huge million gallon releases when something goes wrong at the treatment plant.)
The change to public schools and forced attendance didn’t coincide with a great flowering of freedom but did provide a more uniformly trained population for the industrial magnates.
The reality is that this is not hardly a nation of independent free-thinking people but a collection of serfs;albeit mostly quite comfortable serfs.Those serfs who publically complain make the rest unhappy.
wideawake is an unhappy serf.Having one’s pleasant dreams disturbed usually does that.
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